Current advances in Alzheimer's disease. A medical model paradigm for psychiatric education

Psychiatrists have the expertise to play a major leadership role in the diagnosis and treatment of Alzheimer's disease. Psychiatry residents should be trained to recognize both the cognitive and noncognitive symptoms of this disease. Psychiatrists are in an excellent position to keep up with the rapidly expanding pharmacologic armamentarium to treat this devastating illness. Although such potentials are exciting, they undoubtedly will be complicated. Residency directors and departmental chairs should instill enthusiasm toward basic science advances and their clinical implications. Understanding the mechanisms underlying specific central nervous system illnesses should increase the likelihood of discovering the pathophysiology of others. The more psychiatrists and psychiatric residents become interested in these discoveries and the science underlying such progress in Alzheimer's disease, the better they will be able to keep up to date with progress in understanding other psychiatric disorders.