Dementia has become a very big concern as we have an aging population across the world. Dementia is also terrifying to us because of its disturbing symptoms and limited treatment options.
creighton phelps is director of the alzheimer s disease center s program at the national institutes of health. he joins us now live. and thank you very much, doctor, for being here. first of all, if you could help us understand how has the definition of alzheimer s changed? we are now looking at alzheimer s as a three as three stages. the disease formerly was thought of as just the dementia stage. that s what the classical diagnostic guidelines were used for. now we are using two other stages to describe what happens before the dementia stage. there is a mild cognitive impairment stage, and a new stage that we are now defining for the first time called the preclinical stage where we can t actually diagnose people with the preclinical stage yet, only for now we look at it as a research tool, research paradigm that to find out what s going on