What you should know about Alzheimer's disease

The German physiologist Alois Alzheimer was the first to describe this condition as a specific kind of brain degeneration. It is likely that this illness has been around for centuries

A colleague of Alzheimer's Emil Kraepelin, played a key role in identifying this disease. He pinpointed the symptoms and concluded that they were the result of a particular kind of illness. Aloi Alzheimer was the first person to gain an understanding of the changes taking place in the brain of a patient with this condition.

He identified and described the abnormal tangles and plaques in the brain of a fifty year old woman who was his patient. This patient had the symptoms identified by Kraepelin.

It was only during the 1970s that the name Alzheimer's came into common usage. Later, symptoms of the disease began to be identified in patients as young as 30.

In many cases, there is a specific genetic factor that causes a type of Alzheimer's that occurs in patients below age 65. After that age, there could be a number of other factors including environment, health conditions, etc that give rise to the disease.

Ongoing research has created newer drugs to combat Alzheimer's. A drug called Cognex became available in the 1990s and helps to slow down the cognitive impairment associated with the disease. Subsequently, other medications came on the scene as well.

In Alzheimer's patients, levels of acetylcholine (which is critical for proper functioning of neurons) drop below normal; these new drugs provide additional acetylcholine and thus slow down cognitive impairment.

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