The diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease requires the exclusion of other neurological and psychiatric disorders of old age, and is made through symptoms, signs, auxiliary examinations, cognitive assessment and other aspects.
1. Symptoms: Alzheimer’s disease often has an insidious onset, progressive aggravation, cognitive impairment, such as amnesia, accompanied by language function, visuospatial, executive function and other non-amnesic areas of damage, personality, mental activity and behavior may also appear abnormal changes.
2. Physical signs: patients who suspect Alzheimer’s disease need to complete the neurological physical examination, mental status assessment, and exclude other organic diseases.
3. Cognitive assessment: Patients suspected of having Alzheimer’s disease need to complete cognitive function screening, assessment of living ability, assessment of the severity of dementia, general assessment of cognitive function, and assessment of language ability.
4. Auxiliary examination:
(1) Laboratory tests: used to exclude cognitive dysfunctional diseases caused by nutrient deficiencies, abnormal thyroid function, and so on. (2) Electroencephalography: to exclude Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
(3) Brain imaging: to exclude cerebrovascular diseases.
(4) Alzheimer’s disease biomarker test: cerebrospinal fluid can see a decrease in the level of β-amyloid 42 protein and an increase in the level of total Tau protein and phosphorylated Tau protein.
If Alzheimer’s disease is suspected, it is necessary to go to a regular hospital. In addition to the common neurological and psychiatric disorders in old age, combined with the patient’s symptoms and auxiliary examination diagnosis, under the guidance of the doctor reasonable treatment.