Heredity in dementia of the Alzheimer type

Abstract
Family, twin and linkage studies in Alzheimer's disease are reviewed. Several of these studies appear to be burdened with sources of error, mainly related to sampling and clinical diagnoses. It was previously thought that early-onset cases of Alzheimer's disease were heavily genetically influenced, whereas late-onset cases were sporadic. The author questions whether this difference is mainly due to methodological error.