Ophthalmologic Manifestations of Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease is a progressive neurologic disorder which may present with visual disturbance before the diagnosis is clearly established. Central acuity and visual field are initially normal. Alzheimer patients may show anomalies of color vision, spatial contrast sensitivity, susceptibility to visual masks, fundus examination, ocular motility, higher cortical visual function, visual evoked potential, and pattern electroretinogram. Pathologic analysis has shown abnormalities at all levels of the visual axis from retinal ganglion cell to associative visual cortex. Correlations between the visual abnormalities of Alzheimer's disease and corresponding neuroanatomic substrates are discussed.