Why Is It Called Alzheimer’s Disease?

Alzheimer’s draws its name after the person who discovered it, Dr. Alois Alzheimer. Dr. Alzheimer was a psychiatrist in the late 30s working in Frankfurt, Germany as a caregiver for psychiatric patients ate the Community Hospital for Mental and Epileptic Patients. He was very much interested and passionate about understanding the relationship between brain disease and mental illness.

In 1901, Dr. Alzheimer met a patient known as Auguste Deter who had begun showing increasing memory problems at 50 years of age. Other symptoms that she exhibited included, fear, paranoid and aggression. Eventually, Auguste D was admitted to a psychiatric hospital where she remained inpatient until her death in 1906.

History Of Dr. Alois Alzheimer

By that time, Dr. Alzheimer’s was no longer her doctor as he had moved to a research position at the Munich Hospital. Dr. Alzheimer was informed of her death and sent her brain material which he examined microscopically. He used new stains that revealed the presence of what is now known as amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary.

Dr. Alzheimer went on to publish his descriptions of several similar patients though his work was not welcomed with much enthusiasm. Since Auguste D was not an elderly woman, her condition was termed as “pre-senile dementia”. However, in the late 60s, the British psychiatrists Tomlinson and Roth questioned this classification.

Today, Alzheimer’s is the leading cause of dementia and death among the elderly. Unfortunately, the cause and cure for the deliberating disease is yet to be found. But thanks to Dr. Alzheimer scientists and researchers know where to start and which direction to follow.