Alzheimer's disease

Alzheimer's disease
Other names	Alzheimer disease, Alzheimer's
Drawing comparing a normal aged brain (left) and the brain of a person with Alzheimer's (right). Characteristics that separate the two are pointed out.
Pronunciation	ˈaltshʌɪməz
Medical specialty	Neurology
Symptoms	Difficulty in remembering recent events, problems with language, disorientation, mood swings
Usual onset	Over 65 years old
Duration	Long term
Causes	Poorly understood
Risk factors	Genetics, head injuries, depression, hypertension[1]
Diagnostic method	Based on symptoms and cognitive testing after ruling out other possible causes
Differential diagnosis	Normal aging
Medication	Acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, NMDA receptor antagonists (small benefit)[2]
Prognosis	Life expectancy 3–9 years
Frequency	29.8 million (2015)
Deaths	For all dementias 1.9 million (2015)

Alzheimer's Disease (AD) is a brain disease that slowly destroys brain cells. As of now, there is no cure for Alzheimer's disease. With time, the different symptoms of the disease become more marked. Many people die because of Alzheimer's disease. The disease affects different parts of the brain but has its worst effects on the areas of the brain that control memory, language, and thinking skills. Alzheimer's Disease is the most common form of senile dementia accounting for up to 70% of cases.

The clinical symptoms of AD usually occurs after age 65, but changes in the brain which do not cause symptoms and are caused by Alzheimer's, may begin years or in some cases decades before. Although the symptoms of AD begin in older people it is not a normal part of aging.

At this time there is no cure for Alzheimer's, but there are treatments that can help some patients with the signs and symptoms so they do not affect them as badly. There are also treatments which slow down the disease so the damage to the brain does not happen as quickly. There are also certain personal habits that people can learn which may help to delay the onset of the disease.

While it is not yet known exactly what causes Alzheimer's disease, there are a number of risk factors which may make a person more likely to get it. Some of these risk factors are genetic; changes to four different genes have been found which increase the risk.

The current lifetime risk for a 65-year-old person to get Alzheimer's disease is estimated to be at 10.5%. It is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States causing about 83,500 deaths a year. In 2007, there were over 26.6 million people throughout the world who were affected by AD.^[3]

Alzheimer's disease was named after Alois Alzheimer, a German psychiatrist and neuropathologist who first described the disease after studying the case of a middle-aged woman, Auguste Deter, who was a patient at a hospital in Frankfurt, Germany in 1906.^[4] The disease was named Alzheimer's disease in 1910 by Dr. Emil Kraepilin a co-worker of Alzheimer.

1. ↑ Ballard C, Gauthier S, Corbett A, Brayne C, Aarsland D, Jones E (March 2011). "Alzheimer's disease". Lancet. 377 (9770): 1019–31. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(10)61349-9. PMID 21371747. S2CID 20893019.
2. ↑ Commission de la transparence (June 2012). "Drugs for Alzheimer's disease: best avoided. No therapeutic advantage" [Drugs for Alzheimer's disease: best avoided. No therapeutic advantage]. Prescrire International. 21 (128): 150. PMID 22822592.
3. ↑ Brookmeyer R, Johnson E, Ziegler-Graha K, Arrighi HM. Forecasting the global burden of Alzheimer’s disease. Alzheimers Archived 2023-06-01 at the Wayback Machine Dementia. 2007;3:186–191. PMID 19595937
4. ↑ "Alzheimer's Disease Fast Facts". CNN.com. August 23, 2013. Archived from the original on March 7, 2014. Retrieved February 5, 2014.