Mild Cognitive Impairment and Early Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease is by far the most common dementing disorder in later life, but discriminating the initial manifestations of Alzheimer's from the cognitive changes that accompany usual aging is, in many instances, a difficult task. The term mild cognitive impairment (MCI) has been proposed to represent the border zone between aging-related changes and frank dementia.The purpose of this book is to describe the cognitive changes associated with age, the earliest detectable stages of Alzheimer's, and the relationship of these conditions to MCI. The authors review the latest advances in our understanding of MCI, its prevalence, evaluation, management, and outcomes. In so-doing they provide practising physicians with a useful resource that will assist them in identifying those MCI patients who will progress to recognized Alzheimer's Disease. The ability to identify these individuals, as opposed to those with MCI who do not have an underlying dementing illness, will allow the earliest symptomatic stages of true dementia to more easily recognized and treated.