Diagnosing Alzheimer’s Disease: How to Innovate with Care

Abstract

This volume has explored the global attempts to innovate the diagnostics of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), by means of biomarkers or otherwise. This exploration exceeded the confines of memory clinics and research centres, but also included sites such as newspapers, policy documents, patient groups, general practitioners, and online diagnostics tools. The diversity of sites reflects the many faces and manifestations of AD: it is not just one thing but many. This diversity brings along that the very notion of the disease and how it should be addressed are elusive. Diagnosis can take many forms and play different roles, and is not equally important for everyone. Moreover, exploring the different sites where AD manifests itself shows that ideas of what AD is and how its diagnostics should be improved often are contested. Innovation of AD diagnostics, so much is clear, takes place in an elusive and controversial field. How to answer, then, the question about the desirability of emerging diagnostic technologies?