Development of screening guidelines and clinical criteria for predementia Alzheimer's disease

Background: There is an urgent need to identify subjects with
Alzheimer's disease (AD) in the predementia phase, but validated
diagnostic approaches are currently lacking. In this paper, we
present the background, design and methods of a study, which aims
to develop clinical criteria for predementia AD. We also present
baseline characteristics of the subjects included. The study was
part of the multicentre DESCRIPA project, which is being conducted
within the network of the European Alzheimer's Disease Consortium.
Methods: Clinical criteria will be based on a prospective cohort
study of non-demented subjects older than 55 years and referred to
a memory clinic. At baseline, a number of markers and risk factors
for AD were collected, including demographic variables, measures of
performance in activities of daily living, cognitive, neuroimaging
and genetic markers, and serum and cerebrospinal fluid markers.
Subjects will be reassessed annually for 2 - 3 years, and we will
evaluate which combination of variables best predicts AD-type
dementia at follow-up. Results: Between 2003 and 2005, 881 subjects
were included from 20 memory clinics. Subjects were on average 70.3
years old, and had 10.4 years of education. The average score on
the Mini-Mental State Examination was 27.4. Copyright (C) 2008 S.
Karger AG, Basel.