For those who aspire to live a very long life, dementia is a threat second only to death-or is death in another form. Alzheimer's disease is incurable. It leads to death within an average of 8 years after diagnosis, the last 3 of which are typically spent in an institution. Besides memory loss, Alzheimer's patients show dramatic personality changes, disorientation, declining physical coordination, and an inability to care for themselves. In the final stages, victims are bedridden, lose urinary and bowel control, and suffer epileptic attacks.
Death is usually due to pneumonia or urinary tract infection.
Therapy and Prevention Current therapies cannot stop or eliminate Alzheimer's disease, but they can slow the progress and temporarily reverse symptoms. Alzheimer's-like symptoms can be manifested by brain cancer, meningitis, neurosyphilis, hypothyroidism, hypoglycemia, congestive heart failure, AIDS, vascular disease, Parkinson's disease, Huntington's disease, multiple sclerosis, subdural hematoma, and liver or kidney dysfunction. Many of these conditions are curable. The neurons in the cerebral cortex are the focal site of cellular degeneration in Alzheimer's, but lower brain nuclei that send modulating neurotransmitters to the cortex are also severely affected. The most striking symptoms are produced by acetylcholine depletion-which contributes significantly to loss of memory and loss of capacity for attentiveness.