Alzheimer's disease is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain that causes increasing loss of memory and other mental abilities. The disease attacks few people before age sixty, but it occurs in about twenty percent of people who live to age eighty-five. The disease is named after the German psychiatrist and neuropathologist Alois Alzheimer, who first described its effects on brain cells in 1907. Symptoms of Alzheimer's disease come in three stages: early, late, and advanced. …showed first 75 words of 268 total…

…showed last 75 words of 268 total…become bedridden and weak. In their weakened condition, they are vulnerable to pneumonia and other infectious diseases. Most patients die from such diseases eight to ten years after developing Alzheimer's disease. The cause of Alzheimer's disease is not certain. The disease results from the gradual destruction of brain cells, but the cause of this destruction is not fully understood. There is no known cure. Brain tissues from affected persons shows a slight excess of aluminum,