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Commentary on “Diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease: Two decades of progress.” Alzheimer's Disease: Years of Progress, and an Army of Researchers Recruited; AD Remains an Elusive Adversary
Author(s) -
Drachman David A.
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
alzheimer's and dementia
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 6.713
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1552-5279
pISSN - 1552-5260
DOI - 10.1016/j.jalz.2005.09.008
Subject(s) - citation , disease , adversary , library science , section (typography) , medicine , gerontology , psychology , computer science , pathology , computer security , operating system
p h c d m t t s t s c a Dr. Khachaturian has reviewed, with justifiable pride in any of the accomplishments, the dramatic growth of inerest in Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and our understanding f it, during the last 2 decades. He has accurately characerized the extent to which the financial and organizational upport of the National Institutes of Health, and particularly he National Institute on Aging (NIA), have encouraged and haped the phenomenal growth in research and public wareness of AD. The basic and clinical research that has een done during the 20-plus years since the NIA-sponsored onference on Diagnosis and Research in AD, and the esulting publication of “Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease” 1], have provided scientists and clinicians with insights, nformation, and resources that eventually should lead to ffective means of treating or preventing this disorder. As events unfold, of course no 2 observers will see recisely the same story. In the classic movie “Rashomon,” or example, Kurosawa retold a dramatic event from 3 ifferent points of view; when asked what the retelling eant, he replied that it was, “a reflection of life, and life oes not always have clear meanings.” It should be just so ith any commentary, and with perspective views of the last ecades of AD evolution. Why, one must wonder, did Alzheimer’s disease become uch a focus of interest after the mid 1970s, when for the revious 70 years it had languished as an obscure diagnostic ntity, known only to a few neurologists? Several factors onspired at that time to place AD on the front burner. einstitutionalization, beginning in the 1960s, closed down he state-run mental hospitals where many thousands of lderly demented patients had been warehoused, and reurned them to visibility, cost, and demands in homes or xpensive nursing facilities [2]. Then, although others had onsidered the identity of presenile and senile dementia arlier, Katzman’s landmark editorial in 1976 redefined the arlyand late-onset dementias with senile plaques and