The Alzheimer's Disease Continuum - A New Diagnostic Approach

The management of Alzheimer's disease (AD) is in the process of transitioning into a new era, enabled by 50 years of scientific progress elucidating biological and clinical aspects of the AD continuum. Newly FDA-approved disease modifying therapies have driven greater access to amyloid positron emission tomography imaging, and fluid biomarker technology has produced the first blood-based biomarkers for AD that are currently entering the marketplace. Community practitioners are increasingly finding themselves on the front lines of advanced AD biomarker decision-making that was in the very recent past the domain of subspecialty memory center providers. The goal of this brief review is to orient community practitioners to fundamental principles necessary for informed AD diagnostic decision-making as biomarker technologies evolve and point out some emerging diagnostic challenges that have arisen as a consequence of more readily available advanced diagnostic options.