What is Alzheimers Disease

(correct medical spelling: "Alzheimer's disease", but the public calls it "Alzheimers")

Alzheimers is a progressive loss of cognitive functioning over a long period of time due to senile plaques in the cerebral cortex and the subcortical areas of the brain. These senile plaques have been and still are the subject of very interesting research. Hopefully this will at some point in the future lead to new therapeutic approaches. Here is a link that shows

Experiments on mice where one group served as a non treated control while the treatment group had been treated for seven days with the antioxidant spice Curcumin. Only one week of treatment reduced the amount of the plaques deposited on micro nutritional vessels that supply the brain cells (vessels stained green in the link above) with nutrients (Ref.16).

At the present time we are extremely limited with regard to any effective therapy that would halt the process of this type of dementia. The common form of Alzheimers starts beyond the age of 60 years, only about 5% start before that. The majority of these early start cases are due to one or more inherited genetic mutations at the chromosomes 1, 14, 19 or 21.

In the older Alzheimers patients only up to 20% seem to be inherited, the rest are called "sporadic" cases, which may have some genetic predisposition, but likely are somehow triggered by the environment in ways that are not yet fully determined. The patient loses more and more of the cognitive functions over the years until the patient usually has to be admitted to one of the care homes that specialize in the care of the wandering and eventually completely incapacitated Alzheimer patient.

Here is an in depth article about the development of Alzheimers.

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Alzheimers, Dementia and Delirium

Disclaimer:

This outline is only a teaching aid to patients and should stimulate you to ask the right questions when seeing your doctor. However, the responsibility of treatment stays in the hands of your doctor and you.

References:

1. OL Lopez et al. Neurology 2000 Dec 55(12):1863-1869.

2. K Yasojima et al. Brain Res 2000 DEC 887(1):80-89.

3. A Kontush et al. FreeRadicBiol Med2001Jan30(1): 119-128.

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7. Petanceska et al. Exp Gerontol 2000 Dec 35 (9-10):1317-1325.

8. MB Liddell et al. Brit J Psychiatry 2001 Jan 178: 7-11.

9. Sramek et al.ExpertOpinInvestigDrugs2000Apr9(4):899-915.

10.K Kosaka et al. Neuropathology 2000 March 20(1): 1-7.

11.V Haroutunian et al.Arch Neurol 2000 Aug57(8):1145-1150.

12. C Puckett et al. Am J Hum Genet 1991Aug49(2):320-329.

13. M Haltia Ann Med 2000 Oct 32(7): 439-500.

16. Dr. Brian Bacskai: e-Advances from NIBIB (July 18, 2007).

Last Modified: Feb. 3, 2008