ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE Alexa Nash, UIV
WHAT IS ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE? Alzheimer’s disease is a type of dementia that accounts for about 70% of all dementia cases. Dementia is an illness that affects the fundamental aspects of a person such as memory and reasoning. As it develops it can interfere with one’s daily tasks and even one’s personality. This disease affects the brain by releasing formations of insidious proteins that cause black stains on the brain also known as amyloid plaques (sticky proteins which fill the spaces between the neurons – which activate the brains thoughts and actions) and tau tangles (deformed proteins which destroy the neurons’ internal transport mechanisms). It takes on average about six to eight years to completely take over and ‘is a pandemic that took us centuries to track down.’ Approximately 57 million people suffer from Alzheimer’s disease globally and by 2050 this is estimated to rise to about 152 million due to the expected growth of an aging population.
HOW WAS ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE DISCOVERED? Alois Alzheimer 1864 – 1915 first reported the illness we now know as Alzheimer’s on 3 November 1906 after meeting an old (for the time) woman at the aged 56 who had an unusual mental condition which was becoming progressively worse as time went on. Initially she was observed to be making mistakes around the kitchen, but this progressed to her believing that their carriage driver was trying to break in and hiding things around the house. The woman passed away on 6 June 1906, and Alois Alzheimer had her brain sent to him so he could study what had happened to her as part of the post-mortem investigation. Whilst doing this he noticed straight away just how small her brain was compared to the average person. This had resulted in a significant loss of nerve cells (neurons) within her brain. He also identified protein tangles and plaques around many of the remaining neuron cells. Alois Alzheimer showed his findings to his friend and colleague Kraepelin, who was a researcher and pathologist, who met Alois Alzheimer when they were both working at a psychiatry clinic in Germany. Together they prepared to show Alois Alzheimer’s results at the South-West German Psychiatrists meeting which was to happen in November of that year. The meeting went extremely well and in 1910 the term ‘Alzheimer’s disease’ was first used in a psychiatry textbook written by Kraepelin. Since the discovery in 1906 there has been no identified disease modify treatment for Alzheimer’s disease.
HOW DOES ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE AFFECT PEOPLE: Alzheimer’s disease attacks the brain starting at the hippocampus which is the part of your brain mainly controlling short-term memory, hence it is the first thing to be affected by Alzheimer’s disease. The build-up of amyloid plaques and tau tangles, which accompany Alzheimer’s disease, unravel the brain’s neurons on a massive scale. When this happens the brain’s immune system is activated but unfortunately an irreversible amount of damage has been done so the immune system has very little effect on the disease and in only a few years the disease will have reached other parts of the brain such as the frontal lobe, cerebral cortex and will be destroying them affecting a person’s mood, spatial awareness, facial recognition and long-term memory. Sadly, Alzheimer’s disease often leads to an early death with the brain reduced to about the weight of an orange (about three times smaller than a healthy brain at the time of death). Alzheimer’s disease affects people mainly over the age of 65 but some individuals with genetic characteristics can suffer Alzheimer’s disease at an earlier age.
MEDICAL PROGRESS BEING MADE FOR ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE: A lot of medical progress has happened in understanding Alzheimer’s and whilst a cure is not yet available the knowledge of the disease has moved on vastly since it was discovered in 1906.
FACTORS THAT AFFECT ALZHEIMER’S: Projects such as the Human Genome Project which was formally set up in 1990 and has discovered thousands of genes and DNA patterns have substantially advanced research into Alzheimer’s disease. On 11 April 1986 a 30-year-old woman from Nottingham wrote to St Mary’s Hospital in London where a group of scientists were based looking into the factor of genetics linked to Alzheimer’s disease. She informed them that three of her aunts, one uncle and recently her father were all victims of Alzheimer’s disease, backing up theory that the disease runs in genes. This idea had attracted more attention after a physician in Minnesota published some work on their observation of over 2,000 brain samples from post-mortems done in the Minnesota state hospitals. His discoveries showed that many relatives of middle-aged Alzheimer’s patients were more likely to then themselves develop the disease when they reached that age as well. By gaining more knowledge on the causes of Alzheimer’s disease, such as links to genetics, we move closer and closer to a potential cure. After dedicating the 15
