The guidelines are currently available online for public feedback (www.alz.org/research/diagnostic_criteria). “Once the guidelines are finalized, all researchers are going to adopt them,” said Dr. Weintraub. “Whether clinicians adopt them is another story, and probably the clinicians will need more data about evidence-based medicine and about how much these criteria may improve their ability to diagnose the disease.”
“These efforts are forging into new territory, so there is some concern about the validity and documentation of the utility of these proposals,” said Dr. Petersen. “These are legitimate questions, and we need more longitudinal data in representative populations to validate the approaches. The ultimate goal would be to characterize populations that would be appropriate for early intervention with disease-modifying therapies.”
—Colby Stong