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Alzheimer Disease History
Although medical history does demonstrate research on the identification and analysis of the gradual decline in a human being’s mental health, this phenomenon was most often associated with old age rather than any specific disease. In the year 1906, a German physician named Dr. Alois Alzheimer conducted a brain autopsy on one of his patient’s whom he was unable to save even after years of treatment. |
The patient suffered from symptoms of memory loss, confusion and poor comprehension. The medical examination revealed deposition around the nerve cells and convoluted bands of fiber within the nerve cells. In medical terminology, the former condition is referred to as neuritic plaques and the latter as neurofibrillary tangles; and these conditions enforce the actual presence of the disease. Since then, this degenerative brain disorder known as Alzheimer’s disease has taken its name from the man himself.
Despite this diagnosis, it was only in the decade of the 1960s that doctors agreed to Alzheimer’s existence as a disease and not a mere an old age condition. It was during this time that research highlighted a definite relationship between the number of plaques and tangles present in the brain and the deterioration of one’s cognitive ability. With the onset of the 1970s, AD became a hot topic of research within the medical fraternity and by the 1990s, this in depth study led to invention of drugs for its treatment.
Recent studies related to AD aim towards discovering the influence of genetic and environmental factors on its occurrence. However, the analysis remains incomplete as the mystery of the exact cause of the disease still remains unresolved. Even the drugs approved for the treatment do not promise a cure. The only respite medical world has been able to offer to the patient’s of this disease is slowing down of the gradual cognitive deterioration.
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Alzheimer Disease History
