[Alzheimer's disease--a challenge for dental personnel]

It is likely that dental personnel have little knowledge about Alzheimer's disease (AD), the most common of the degenerative diseases. The number of patients with AD will increase in the future, due to an increasing number of the aged. The number of AD-patients in need of dental treatment will also increase because of a continually higher number of remaining teeth among the elderly. To meet this category of patients, it is of importance to increase the knowledge of AD. The criteria for the diagnosis of AD may be summarized as loss of intellectual accomplishment, loss of memory, slowly progressive course of the disease and either loss of abstract thinking, loss of judgement, loss of higher cortical functions or personality disturbances. The prevalence of senile dementia in Oslo has been estimated to 72% in nursing homes and 11% for the population living at home for the age group <75 years. Among these, between 50 and 70 percent suffer from AD. The etiology of AD is unknown, but the two most accepted hypotheses are the genetic and the toxic. Epidemiological and molecular biological evidence points to the possible involvement of aluminum in the aetiopathogenesis of Alzheimer's disease.