Footnote

b Caution: A thorough medical checkup is imperative before it is concluded that a person has AD. About 10 to 20 percent of dementia cases result from ailments that are treatable. As for diagnosing AD, the book How to Care for Aging Parents explains: “Alzheimer’s can be diagnosed with certainty only by studying the brain during an autopsy, but doctors can rule out other possibilities and then make a diagnosis by the process of elimination.”