Department of Neurology, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
J Alzheimers Dis. 2012;31 Suppl 3:S203-9. doi: 10.3233/JAD-2012-112216.
The focus of most of the research on Alzheimer's disease in the last decades has been on senile plaques and neurofibrillary tangles. The vast majority of patients with Alzheimer's disease are over 75 years of age, whereas most of the research focuses on younger subjects. To consider old-age dementia as a homogenous well-defined condition ignores the complexity of this condition and limits the development of new diagnostic methods, preventive strategies, or treatment strategies that could be widely applicable in daily practice in the majority of the older patients. The current research on biomarkers focuses on correlates of plaques and tangles, which are poor markers in older dementia subjects. Acknowledging that dementia in old age is an essentially different condition from dementia at relatively younger age is needed and should lead to new approaches in dementia research.
在过去几十年的大多数阿尔茨海默病研究中，重点都放在了老年斑和神经纤维缠结上。绝大多数阿尔茨海默病患者的年龄都在 75 岁以上，而大多数研究都集中在年轻人群上。将老年痴呆症视为一种同质的明确疾病，忽略了这种疾病的复杂性，并限制了新的诊断方法、预防策略或治疗策略的发展，这些方法在大多数老年患者中可能广泛适用。目前对生物标志物的研究集中在斑块和缠结的相关性上，而在老年痴呆症患者中，这些相关性是较差的标志物。需要认识到老年痴呆症与相对年轻时期的痴呆症在本质上是不同的疾病，这应该导致痴呆症研究的新方法。
