Lancet 18, 177–184 (2019)

An individual’s degree of frailty modifies their clinical expression of Alzheimer’s disease pathology.

It is known that the degree of pathology of Alzheimer’s disease at autopsy doesn’t always correlate with the clinical presentation of the disease; however, the modifiers of this relationship are unknown.

A group of researchers from North America analyzed data from the Rush Memory and Aging project, a cohort of Americans older than 59 years who underwent annual neuropsychological and clinical evaluations between recruitment and death.

They found that the degree of frailty modified the association between Alzheimer’s disease pathology and Alzheimer’s dementia. This has implications for clinical management, as those with high frailty might be at high risk for worsened Alzheimer’s pathology.