Question: what is Alzheimer’s?

Callum Johnston answered on 22 Nov 2012:

Hey Minecraftguy, good to chat to you yesterday, lots of good questions!

Alzheimer’s is a disease old people (age 70+ normally) get which causes them to lose their memory and have changes to their personality (they normally become more grumpy and aggressive). These symptoms happen because the brain cells that control memory start to lose their connections with eachother and eventually die. They first struggle to make any new memories and then start to forget older ones too. It’s really sad for the person and their family to suffer these changes, as the person no longer seems themselves.

We don’t know exactly what causes the cells to lose connections and die yet. We do know that a sticky protein builds up in the brain of people with Alzheimer’s so scientists thought this must cause it but there are lots of other things that are happening in the brain which may start the disease before this protein appears.

Currently there are only a couple of drugs to help people with it keep their memories for a little while longer but eventually they will lose them. There is no way to get the memories back after they are gone so most scientists are now working on treatments which you can start taking before the disease starts, a bit like a vaccine.

Hope this helps, if you want to know anything else about it just ask.