Appreciating Alzheimer's Disease Alzheimer's disease was discovered and named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer. The cause of Alzheimer's disease is unknown, but some characteristics have been identified. This disease has different stages: mild, moderate and advanced. For people with early-onset Alzheimer's, the root cause is usually a genetic mutation. People with late-onset Alzheimer's disease result from a complicated series of brain changes that occur over a long period of time. Current drug treatments are administered to temporarily slow cognitive impairment. Scientists are currently studying that the disease can be triggered by several factors, however age is the best known factor. This unnerving disease called Alzheimer's, also known as AD, was discovered in 1906 by Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a German doctor, this was not considered a critical illness until the 1970s. It all began with the documented case of a woman named Auguste D, in her fifties, who showed signs of a cognitive disorder in relation to memory and socialization with her family. He later died and this great doctor decided to do an autopsy on his brain, then he noticed a shrinkage in and around the nerve cells of his brain which significantly led to the discovery of this disease. There have been many people who have contributed significantly to making this disease known, such as Emil Kraepelin who worked together with Doctor Alois, but the great Robert Katzman, a pathologist from New York, who in the 1970s made it recognizable, making it become an important public health problem for the aging population. Alzheimer's disease affects memory, behavior and thinking (1). The symptoms of this disease slowly worsen over time and affect... middle of paper... how it progresses. These findings certainly shed light for people who would like to know how amyloid plaques and tau accumulate in the brain. Bibliography1. Knopman DS (2009). Alzheimer's disease and other dementia diseases. In EG Nabel, ed., ACP Medicine, section 11, chap. 11. Hamilton, ON: BC Decker.2. Wilcock GK, Esiri MM (1982) Plaques, tangles and dementia. A quantitative study. J Neurol Sci 57: 407 – 4173. Alzheimer's ACT. (2014) Alzheimer's Disease Curriculum, Module III: Social Impact. What roles does tau play in the biological composition of Alzheimer's?4. McKee AC, Kosik KS, Kowall NW (1991) Neuritic pathology and dementia in Alzheimer's disease. Ann Neurol 30: 156 – 1655. Braak H, Braak E (1991) Neuropathological staging of Alzheimer-related changes. Acta Neuropathol (Berlin) 82: 239 – 259»6.6. Judith London PhD (2009) connects the dots