Field of medicine: Neurology and geriatrics.

Format: Hardcover book.

Audience: Physicians and scientists engaged in research on the course, cause, and treatment of Alzheimer disease.

Purpose: The 99 papers in this book were selected by the editors from among more than 800 papers presented at the Fifth International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders held in Osaka, Japan, in 1996.

Content: Half of the papers cover pathophysiology and anatomy; the rest address epidemiology, genetics, therapy, and psychosocial care.

Highlights: The Table of contents gives a sense of the dynamism that underlies current work on Alzheimer disease. Breakthroughs in the genetic basis of this disease are slowly being made. This book gives considerable coverage of the roles of amyloid, protein, nerve-specific growth factors, apoptosis, and apolipoprotein E in the genesis of Alzheimer disease. New treatments are discussed, including muscarinic agonists, novel anticholinesterases, neuroprotective agents, and antioxidants.

Limitations: Unless one is actively engaged in Alzheimer disease research, many of the papers are too esoteric and complex. Readers without a background in Alzheimer disease will be unable to understand many of the papers and will not be able to make reasonable judgments about the validity of the findings. There is no editorial commentary and no evidence that the editors individually reviewed or edited the papers.

Context: Other multiauthor collections are available, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's Diseases: Recent Developments (Plenum, 1995) and Pharmacological Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease (Wiley, 1997). Practicing internists and neurologists should turn their attention to briefer, more concise, and better edited texts, such as Alzheimer Disease (Raven Pr, 1994), Alzheimer Disease: Causes, Diagnosis, Treatment, and Care (CRC, 1996), Clinical Diagnosis and Management of Alzheimer's Disease (Butterworth-Heinemann, 1996), or Alzheimer's Disease: A Medical Companion (Blackwell Science, 1995).

Reviewer: Daniel B. Hier, MD, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, Illinois.