Although there are a number of phenotypes of Alzheimer’s disease dementia, by far the most common is amnestic. Impairment of new learning, forgetting recent activities or conversations, is particularly prominent whereas memories of early life and knowledge are not affected until later. The posterior cortical atrophy variant is characterised by prominent visual disturbance not explained by other pathology; the logopenic primary progressive aphasia variant is dominated by language deficits. Visual and language symptoms can be present relatively early in the amnestic variant, but are not predominant.