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Dementia, technically defined as cognitive impairments sufficiently pervasive and severe enough that they disrupt independent life, is one of the most devastating symptoms of neurologic disease. While Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common neurodegenerative disease that causes it, more than 50 medical, psychiatric, and neurological conditions are associated with dementia. Well organized and expertly planned, this text provides new concepts of patient management that have come about through recent neuroscience research. This volume, reviewing the dementias with the needs of the clinician in mind, is unique in that the section dealing with disease mechanisms reviews the exciting recent scientific advance in regard to Alzheimer disease, whereas the clinical section(section A) focuses not on Alzheimer disease but upon related disorders, the less common dementing syndromes due to other neurodegenerative disorders. The editors of this Blue Book have brought together an extraordinary group of experts to define the scientific advances primarily in Alzheimer's disease (section B) and new treatments (section C) being developed.

hardcover, textbook

Daniel B. Hier The book is a multiauthored, edited volume divided into four major sections: degenerative diseases that cause dementia; scientific advances; treatment; and controversies in dementia. It is intended to provide current state-of-knowledge reviews on the diagnosis, causation, and treatment of dementia. Neurologists, geriatricians, and general internists are the audience. This book contains 17 highly scholarly, highly detailed, and rigorously referenced reviews. Sadly, with a few notable exceptions, they make for very difficult reading. The chapters on Pick's disease, frontal dementia, and cytoskeletal abnormalities in Alzheimer's disease are especially readable. This book is terse and fact-filled. It is not easy reading and it represents the unedited and unrefereed views of over 30 authorities in the field. To the less sophisticated, a chapter on Pick's disease next to a chapter on frontal dementia is confusing, as is a chapter on Lewy body dementia next to a chapter on Parkinsonian dementia syndromes. Clinicians interested in dementia may wish to look at Khachaturian's Alzheimer's Disease: Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Care (CRC Press, 1996) or Folstein's Neurobiology of Primary Dementia (American Psychiatric Press, 1998). The more sophisticated student of dementia can obtain sustenance here, but the food is tough.