Alzheimer's disease
From an uncommon process, Alzheimer’s disease has now been elevated to the status of a major lethal disease and, consequently, accelerated research investigations have provided insight into its nature.
Abstract
Alzheimer’s original description of the pathologic process that bears his name was thought to relate only to a relatively young group of patients designated as having ‘presenile dementias’ until the landmark studies by Blessed et al. [ l ] demonstrated identical cerebral lesions, plaques, and tangles in more than 60% of patients older than 65 dying with dementia. Thus, from an uncommon process, Alzheimer’s disease has now been elevated to the status of a major lethal disease and, consequently, accelerated research investigations have provided insight into its nature. Plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, and cerebrovascular amyloidosis are now known to be the pathologic hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. In addition, identical lesions are seen in persons with Down’s syndrome who are older than 40 years. Elucidation of the amyloid component of the compact plaques and cerebral vessels has provided impetus for the current explosion in Alzheimer’s disease research.