Alzheimer's disease -- The Most Common Form of Dementia, Affecting Millions of People Around the Wor

In his letter, America's fortieth President wrote about the fears and difficulties presented by Alzheimer's disease. He said that he and his wife Nancy hoped their public announcement would lead to greater understanding of the condition among individuals and families affected by it.

There is no simple test to show if someone has Alzheimer's disease. Doctors who suspect Alzheimer's must test the patient for many other disabilities first. Alzheimer's is considered the cause if the tests fail to show the presence of other disabilities. The only way to tell for sure if a person has Alzheimer's is to examine the victim's brain after death.

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Some kinds of dementia can be cured or corrected. This is especially true if they are caused by drugs, alcohol, infection sight or hearing problems, heart or lung problems or head injury. Other kinds of dementia can be corrected by changing levels of hormones or vitamins in the body. However, brain cells of Alzheimer's victims die and are not replaced.

Alzheimer's disease affects people of all races equally. Yet women are more likely to develop the disease than men. This is partly because women generally live longer than men.

Another sign of Alzheimer's disease is difficulty solving simple problems, such as what to do if food on a stove is burning. Also, people have trouble following directions or finding their way to nearby places.

Another study found evidence of Alzheimer's by using a chemical known as F-D-D-N-P. This study used a process called positron emission tomography to make brain images of eighty-three adults. American scientists said the test was ninety-eight percent correct in showing differences between Alzheimer's and normal memory problems.

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Alzheimer's disease is the most common kind of a disability or mental sickness called dementia. Dementia is the loss of thinking ability that is severe enough to interfere with daily activities. It is not a disease itself. Instead, dementia is a group of signs of some conditions and diseases.

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Another sign is struggling to find the right words to express thoughts or understand what is being discussed. Finally, people with Alzheimer's seem to change. Quiet people may become noisier and aggressive. They may easily become angry and lose their ability to trust others.

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SCIENCE IN THE NEWS was written by Nancy Steinbach. Our producer was Brianna Blake. This is Bob Doughty.

Recently, scientists reported progress in efforts to identify persons who will develop Alzheimer's disease. For example, one study examined brain and spinal cord fluid from sixty-eight people. It found twenty-three proteins that showed evidence of the disease. Study organizers said the protein test was correct in about ninety percent of patients involved in the study. The results were confirmed with brain examinations after the patients died.

And I'm Faith Lapidus. Today we tell about Alzheimer's disease. One century after its discovery, the cause of the disease is still unknown.

Alzheimer's disease normally affects people more than sixty-five years old. But a few rare cases have been discovered in people younger than fifty. The average age of those found to have the disease is about eighty years old.

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As time passes, they forget more and more. They forget the names of their husband, wife or children. Then they forget who they are. Finally, they remember nothing. It is as if their brain dies before the other parts of the body. Victims of Alzheimer's do die from the disease, but it many take many years.

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Alzheimer's is found in only about two percent of people who are sixty-five. But the risk increases to about twenty percent by age eighty. By ninety, half of all people are found to have some signs of the disease.

Doctors describe Alzheimer's as a slowly increasing brain disorder. It affects memory and personality -- those qualities that make a person an individual. There is no known cure. Victims slowly lose their abilities to deal with everyday life. At first they forget simple things, like where they put something or a person's name.

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Many scientists now say doctors are considering other possibilities. These include studies of enzymes that act on proteins to produce the plaques, and using antibodies against amyloid. Yet amyloid and enzymes are important for health and scientists do not want to destroy them completely.

It has been more than a century since a German doctor, Alois Alzheimer, told about a dementia patient whose brain was studied after death. Her brain had sticky structures and nerve cells that appeared to be mixed together. Later studies showed these tangled nerves are made of a protein called tau. The tau protein changes so that it sticks together in groups. The sticky structures were shown to be amyloid plaques.

Scientists say all these results must be repeated with larger groups of patients. But they said that being able to find the presence of the disease in such ways would make early treatment possible.