Though increasingly common, Alzheimer's disease still isn't all
that easy to diagnose, especially in its early stages.
Forgetfulness and other signs of dementia can be caused by lots
of things other than Alzheimer's. Sometimes the symptoms are
fleeting or normal in the context of a person's age. But at
other times these symptoms mark the dark path of Alzheimer's.
Doctors' standard approach to diagnosis includes taking a
medical history of the patient, assessing mental function and
administering various neurological and lab tests. Since last
year there's been a new drug to help. The Food and Drug
Administration approved a radioactive tracer called Amyvid for
use in PET scans to identify clumps of proteins in the brain
that are associated with Alzheimer's disease. Researchers have
embraced the drug as a tool to gauge these so-called amyloid
plaques in the brain. They've already found that amyloid shows
up years before people start having problems with memory or
thinking. But is the test appropriate for widespre