Alzheimer's: The Long Goodbye Video Transcript

Webcast Transcript

You would rule out everything, and what you were left with, you would consider to be Alzheimer's.

We take a more direct and informed approach now, and we do the tests that are appropriate to the patient's particular presentation. If they have symptoms that are suggestive of a brain tumor, then by all means brain imaging would be absolutely indicated. But there are some cases in which that type of an evaluation may not be necessary to come to a diagnosis of probable Alzheimer's.

DAVID MARKS, MD: Very briefly, what are some of the potential causes of this disease? When I was a medical resident, there was a lot of talk about aluminum. Everybody was worried about their pots and pans. Is that a possible cause?

PETER DAVIES, PhD: I think that's the one cause that can be excluded. I think there's a lot of very good evidence that aluminum does not and cannot cause Alzheimer's disease. There probably are multiple causes of this disease. It's very difficult to identify any one environment factor or any single event in the history of a patient which invariably leads to Alzheimer's disease. There are almost certainly multiple factors.

We mentioned genetics, and clearly the disease is inherited in a very small number of cases, probably 2 percent. In 98 percent of cases, we don't know what the cause is. As I said, there's probably multiple causes.

DAVID MARKS, MD: Okay, good. Thank you both for sharing some very important information. Thanks for being here. And thank you for joining our webcast. I'm Dr. David Marks.

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