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| + | <p class="body_text">There are many vying hypotheses which postulate how Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) may arise. Of these, the most well known is the Amyloid Hypothesis, which is centred around the ‘senile plaques’ that form in AD brains and suggests that their removal could be key in halting the progression of the disease, though other hypotheses are contradict this precept. AD is generally accepted to cause three major histopathological changes in brain tissue. | ||
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Revision as of 20:26, 12 August 2013
RESEARCH
Alzheimer's Disease
Dementia is an age related neurodegenerative condition, characterised by failure of recent memory and intellectual functions (attention, language, visual-spatial orientation, abstract thinking, judgement), and tends to progress steadily. These changes are due to the mounting dysfunction and death of brain cells, called neurons, that are responsible for the storage and computation of information. Late stages of the disease often see patients bedridden, mute and incontinent. Although some drugs can temporarily improve memory, pharmaceutical research, through enlightening, has been clinically unsuccessful. At present there are no treatments that can halt, let alone revert, the inexorable progression of dementia.
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common of the dementias, afflicting 5-10% of the US population over 45, and 2% of the population in industrialised countries (Mattson 2004). It is predicted that its incidence will rocket up threefold 50 years from now (http://www.alz.org). It is mainly ‘late-onset’, arising after the age of 60, though rarer early onset types exist. Because there are other forms of dementia and other means of memory impairment, AD can only be verified post-mortem by examining the deceased’s brain.
Neuropathology
There are many vying hypotheses which postulate how Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) may arise. Of these, the most well known is the Amyloid Hypothesis, which is centred around the ‘senile plaques’ that form in AD brains and suggests that their removal could be key in halting the progression of the disease, though other hypotheses are contradict this precept. AD is generally accepted to cause three major histopathological changes in brain tissue.
