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What is Alzheimer's Disease? Definition and History

© Brenda S. Parris

In the years since my year as my mother's caregiver in 1994-95, I have been amazed that most every time I have mentioned Alzheimer's disease, someone else has acknowledged its presence in their family. A mother died, one grandmother had gone on another was in the nursing home, a father had dissappeared his body was found years later, another father was a second-generation Alzheimer's victim. The stories are as individual as the people who tell them, but the similarities are so very evident, and we have been through it find ourselves nodding in acknowledgement of that fact.

There are around four million people today who have Alzheimer's disease. In a national survey, ninteen million people said they had a family member with Alzheimer's and thirty-seven million said they knew someone with this disease. One in ten persons over sixty-five and almost half of those over eighty-five have Alzheimer's. More and more we are hearing of people in their fifties who have Alzheimer's, and a small percentage have it as early as in their thirties and forties.

Just what is Alzheimer's disease? The Alzheimer's Association provides this definition in their Web site's glossary: "A progressive, neurodegenerative disease characterized by loss of function and death of nerve cells in several areas of the brain, leading to loss of mental functions such as memory and learning. Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia." (Alzheimer's Association, Glossary)

The disease was first described by Dr. Alois Alzheimer in 1906, even though most of us cannot remember hearing much about Alzheimer's disease until the 1980s. In recent years, researchers have helped us to better understand this disease in terms of changes in the brain such as plaques and tangles. The Alzheimer's Association has summarized the symptoms of this disease and the life span that can be expected: "Symptoms of Alzheimer's can include gradual memory loss, decline in the ability to perform routine tasks, disorientation, difficulty in learning, loss of language skills, impairment of judgment and planning and personality changes. The rate of progression varies from person to person. The time from the onset of symptoms until death ranges from 3 to 20 years; the average is 8 years. Eventually persons with Alzheimer's disease become totally incapable of caring for themselves."

There is no cure for Alzheimer's disease, but there are new drugs that can help ease the symptoms and perhaps delay progression. When my mother was diagnosed in 1993, her Alzheimer's was already too advanced for her to be helped by Cognex, the medication used at that time. Now there are others-- Aricept and Excelon. Research into the possiblilty of an Alzheimer's vaccine is in the news as well.