Commentary on Kurz et ale

The Early recognition of conditions that affect continuously distributed human traits, such as intelligence, present many difficulties. For example, is a person with a fasting blood sugar of 132 an early diabetic or an individual with a diastolic blood pressure of 91 a mild hypertensive? In a similar vein, is a person with complaints of cognitive difficulty and minimal findings on a careful examination suffering from a progressive dementing illness like Alzheimer’s disease, suffering from a medical disorder such as hyperthyroidism, experiencing a depression that might be interfering with concentration and cognitive processing, or noticing the normal mild changes in cognition that occur with aging? These questions are among the many raised by the case report by Kurz, Romero and Lauter.