Alzheimer's disease is the most frequent cause of dementia that slowly and progressively causes cognitive impairment and profoundly alters the daily activities of the patients. Approximately ten percent of all persons over the age of seventy experience significant memory loss and in more than half of the cases the cause is Alzheimer's disease.

This reference book is an update on the most relevant pathological and clinical findings of this

neurological disorder. Chapters cover the basic hypothesis of Alzheimer's disease pathological features of the disease in the brain Alzheimer's disease diagnosis and therapy. Information provided in the book is focused on research in developed countries.

The book offers students of medicine and nursing as well as medical practitioners and specialists (internists neurologists gerontologists and psychiatrists) the necessary information to understand the pathological and clinical aspects of the disease in depth with the goal of improving medical outcomes in the care of their patients.

Recent Advances in Alzheimer Disease Research is a book series focusing on contemporary research on Alzheimer's disease epidemiology pathophysiology diagnosis and therapy. The series features reviews by experts in neuroscience and aims to provide current information in the field to both researchers and clinicians.

Down syndrome is a chromosomal disorder affecting more than 5.8 million individuals worldwide. Down syndrome can be viewed as a complex multi-system disorder as it manifests into significant physical psychological and cognitive abnormalities in affected persons. With aging most adults with Down syndrome develop the clinical and neuropathological hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. Unfortunately no extant treatments have proven beneficial for cognitive dysfunction for either Down syndrome or Alzheimer's disease. An incomplete understanding of the common pathogenic mechanisms that link these two disorders has limited researchers' progress to this end. Common Pathogenic Mechanisms between Down syndrome and Alzheimer's Disease: Steps toward Therapy is a novel attempt to fill this void by summarizing the work of world-renowned scientists in the field of Alzheimer's disease and Down syndrome and thus providing an unprecedented opportunity to attract attention to Down syndrome as a tool for understanding the common molecular mechanisms that underlie Alzheimer's disease and to develop new therapies for similar neurodegenerative disorders of the brain.

The book covers the fundamental pathophysiology and molecular mechanisms behind the incidence of Alzheimer's disease in Down syndrome affected individuals as well other key topics such as diagnosis and management in vivo brain imaging studies and progressive neurodegeneration of the monoaminergic system. The book concludes with a review of recent clinical trials of drugs designed to mitigate cognitive dysfunction in aging adults with Down syndrome and establishes a scientific warrant for the increased testing of candidate pharmacotherapies.

Common Pathogenic Mechanisms between Down syndrome and Alzheimer's Disease: Steps toward Therapy is a useful reference clinicians involved in treating Down syndrome patients as well as for neuroscience researchers seeking to understand the influence of a specific case of aneuploidy on Alzheimer's disease incidence and its progression at the molecular level.