Introduction to Revised Criteria for the Diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease: National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer Association Workgroups

Criteria for the clinical diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) were established by a National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke (NINCDS) and the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association (ADRDA) workgroup in 1984 [1]. These criteria were universally adopted, have been extremely useful, and have survived intact without modification for over a quarter of a century. In the intervening 27 years, however, important advances in our understanding of AD, in our ability to detect the pathophysiological process of AD, and changes in conceptualization regarding the clinical spectrum of the disease have occurred.