Introduction to the recommendations from the National Institute on Aging‐Alzheimer's Association workgroups on diagnostic guidelines for Alzheimer's disease

Criteria for the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease (AD) were established in 1984. A broad consensus now exists that these criteria should be revised to incorporate state-of-the-art scientific knowledge.

The National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the Alzheimer's Association sponsored a series of advisory round table meetings in 2009 whose purpose was to establish a process for revising diagnostic and research criteria for AD. The recommendation from these advisory meetings was that three separate work groups should be formed with each assigned the task of formulating diagnostic criteria for one phase of the disease: the dementia phase; the symptomatic, pre-dementia phase; and the asymptomatic, preclinical phase of AD.