Widely used criteria for the diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease were established in 1984. These criteria outlined a typical clinical picture, recommended laboratory testing to exclude other causes of dementia, required neuro-pathological examination for a definitive diagnosis, and categorised individuals without pathological verification as having probable or possible Alzheimer's disease.1 For more than 20 years, Alzheimer's disease remained a probabilistic clinical-pathological syndrome; syndromes are notoriously non-specific and the Alzheimer's disease syndrome was no exception.2 The gradual appearance of biomarkers (initially non-specific MRI measures of brain atrophy and PET measures of glucose hypometabolism; later CSF and PET measures of amyloid β and pathological tau) resulted in new criteria, proposed by an International Working Group (IWG), for incorporation of biomarkers into the diagnostic assessment.
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