A different type of dementia is changing what's known about cognitive decline

A recently recognised form of dementia is changing the understanding of cognitive decline, improving the ability to diagnose patients and underscoring the need for a wider array of treatments.

- Pam Belluck

LATE usually emerges at an older age than Alzheimer's, with symptoms generally limited to impaired memory. PHOTO: MORGAN HORNSBY/ NYTIMES

(PHOTO: MORGAN HORNSBY/ NYTIMES)

Patients are increasingly being diagnosed with the condition, known as LATE, and guidelines advising doctors how to identify it were published in 2025.

LATE is now estimated to affect about a third of people age 85 and older and 10 per cent of those age 65 and older, according to those guidelines. Some patients who have been told they have Alzheimer's may actually have LATE, say dementia experts.

"In about one out of every five people who come into our clinic, what was thought to maybe be Alzheimer's disease actually appears to be LATE," said Dr Greg Jicha, a neurologist and an associate director of the University of Kentucky's Sanders-Brown Center on Aging.

On its own, LATE - short for Limbic-predominant age-related TDP-43 encephalopathy - is usually less severe than Alzheimer's and unfolds more slowly, said Dr Pete Nelson, an associate director of the Sanders-Brown Center. He helped galvanise efforts to identify the disorder.

That can be reassuring to patients and their families. But there is no specific treatment for LATE.

Also, many older people have more than one type of dementia pathology, and when LATE occurs in conjunction with Alzheimer's, it exacerbates symptoms and speeds up decline, he said.

About half of 85-year-olds with severe Alzheimer's also have LATE, said Dr Nelson, adding that with the combination, "you also tend to be more likely to have some hair-raising, horrible symptoms such as psychosis and urinary incontinence".