Dementia is a common neurodegenerative disorder involving as many as 10% of those over age 65 and substantially shortens life expectancy. The prevalence of dementia in developed countries under the age of 60 years is very low (0.3–0.7%) and increases almost exponentially with age to 42-68% in those older than 95 years (Fratiglioni et al., 2000). The incidence of dementia is about 0.1% in persons aged 60-65 years and increases to 9% in the population older than 95 years (Fratiglioni et al., 2000). Although Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the commonest type of dementia, several other types of dementias have been described which are collectively referred to as non-Alzheimer’s disease (non-AD) dementias (Table 1). AD, because of its prevalence, has become the prototypical dementia to which all other dementias are compared. However, in the past two decades, remarkable progress in the fields of molecular genetics, biochemistry, and biophysics have permitted better distinction of the ‘other’ dementias from AD and more refined discrimination among these non-AD dementias.
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