Patient case (clinical description): A 70-year-old man comes to the office accompanied by his wife.  The patient has experienced progressive memory loss over the last years.  He needs help with some of his routine activities, such as paying bills.  The patient's wife says, "He used to be such an independent person, but now he needs help with many things, even finding direction to home!"  Medical history includes hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and type 2 diabetes mellitus.  Family history includes Alzheimer disease in his father.  MRI reveals diffuse cortical and hippocampal atrophy. The diagnosis of AD is made using the National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer's Association (NIA-AA) criteria.

Patient's own account: I am a 70-year-old man, and I paid a visit to the doctor with my wife the other day. I noticed that I tend to forget small things and that my memory has decreased over the past few years. I even ask my wife to help me out with my daily routine. I used to be the one paying the bills, but now she has to give me a hand. My wife mentioned to the doctor that I used to be independent and that I tend to forget where we live. I suffer from hypertension, high cholesterol, and type 2 diabetes. My poor dad was suffering from Alzheimer disease, so I hope I'm not going to end the same way! I did an MRI and they found out that some part of my brain was decreasing. I also did an Alzheimer test.

Clinical trial: Rocky Mountain Alzheimer's Disease Center Longitudinal Biomarker and Clinical Phenotyping Study

Eligibility criteria:
Inclusion Criteria:

          1. Persons with age-related MCI or AD according to clinical diagnosis, consistent with
             NIA-AA diagnostic criteria

          2. Individuals with DS according to clinical diagnosis, with cognitive ability sufficient
             to follow directions, Age > 30 years

          3. Non-DS community-dwelling controls, Age > 60 years

          4. Non-pregnant mothers and fathers of DS individuals (controls)

          5. Ability to complete baseline assessments

          6. Has an informant (study partner) available to complete functional interviews/survey
             measures annually

        Exclusion Criteria:

          -  Presence of concomitant medical, neurological, or psychiatric illness or condition
             that in the opinion of the investigators would confound interpretation of study
             results. These include: Korsakoff encephalopathy; active substance abuse; hepatitis C;
             opportunistic brain infection; brain tumor; active neoplastic disease (skin tumors
             other than melanoma are not exclusionary; participants with stable prostate cancer may
             be included at the discretion of the project director); multiple sclerosis; history of
             clinically significant stroke; current evidence or history in the past 2 years of
             focal brain lesion, head injury with loss of consciousness, or DSM-V criteria for any
             major psychiatric disorder, including psychosis, major depression, bipolar disorder,
             alcohol or substance abuse; blindness, deafness or any other disability which may
             prevent the participant from participating or cooperating in the protocol.

          -  Presence of contraindication for MRI scan for Non-Down Syndrome participants
No condition on gender to be admitted to the trial.
Accepts Healthy Volunteers
Subject must be at least 18 Years old.


Eligibility (NLI label): Entailment