By the year 2040 it will afflict more than 12 million Americans. Alzheimer's Disease is broadly classified in three stages. In the early stages, the patient has symptoms of forgetfulness, absentmindedness and some inablity to recall common words and learn new things. Judgement and intellectual and social functioning are faulty. In the middle stages, there is loss of logic, memory and motor abilities.
Patients wander aimlessly and pace.
Speech is slurred and paranoid features may appear. There have been many hypotheses about what may be the possible causes of the disease. A cholinergic hypothesis is by far the most accepted theory. However, some argue that Beta amyloid is merely a marker of the disease, the result but not the cause of Alzheimer's. Researchers have concluded that there is a definite genetic link in families with a pattern of Alzheimer's, so a genetic pattern is determined biologically.