Alzheimer's: The Long Goodbye Video Transcript

Participants

, Peter Davies PhD, David R. Marks MD, Norman Relkin MD, PhD, Chi Chau MD

Summary

Alzheimer's disease is a common, but often misunderstood condition. Forgetfulness is just one small symptom of a larger, more complicated disease that affects memory, thinking, behavior, and emotion. Join our panel of experts as they discuss how Alzheimer's disease affects the brain and body.

Webcast Transcript

DAVID MARKS, MD: Hi, and welcome to our webcast. I'm Dr. David Marks. Up to four million Americans suffer from Alzheimer's disease, and believe it or not, it's the fourth leading cause of death in this country. What is Alzheimer's disease? Who does it affect, and how do you diagnose it?

Joining us to talk about these issues are two experts. First is Dr. Norman Relkin. He's Director of the Cornell Memory Disorders Program at the Weill Cornell Medical College. Welcome.

NORMAN RELKIN, MD: Thank you, David.

DAVID MARKS, MD: Also we have Dr. Peter Davies, the Resnick Professor of Alzheimer's disease research at Albert Einstein School of Medicine. Welcome. Norm, let's start off by talking about what Alzheimer's disease is.

NORMAN RELKIN, MD: Alzheimer's disease is the leading cause of dementia in the elderly, dementia being defined as a decline from a previously attained state of cognitive accomplishment, that's sufficiently severe to interfere with daily life. Dementia also has to be progressive, and Alzheimer's disease is slowly progressive, often over about a decade.

DAVID MARKS, MD: How widespread is this problem?

PETER DAVIES, PhD: All over the Western world, the disease appears to have about the same incidence. We would see perhaps 6-7 percent of the over-65s affected, and that number may be as high as 30-40 percent of the over-85s. Very, very large consumer of healthcare dollars, of course.

DAVID MARKS, MD: My impression is, we've heard a lot more about Alzheimer's over the last decade or two. Is that because the population is aging?

PETER DAVIES, PhD: Oh, most definitely. At the turn of the century, life expectancy was only about 60. And, of course, Alzheimer's disease, happily, is very rare prior to age 60.

DAVID MARKS, MD: How did it get the name Alzheimer's disease?

NORMAN RELKIN, MD: Dr. Alois Alzheimer was a German neurologist, and he did describe both the first patient and the pathology that we use to this day to diagnose the disease after the person has died. Dr. Alzheimer's first case was a woman who was relatively young, and as a consequence, his name was attached originally to what was called pre-senile dementia, or dementia that took its onset before age 65. We now recognize that the form of the disease that occurs later in life and the one that occurs early shares the same pathology, and Alzheimer's name is applied to both.

DAVID MARKS, MD: You mention "early." Younger people can get it.

NORMAN RELKIN, MD: There have been cases described as young as their 20s. These, fortunately, as Peter mentioned earlier, are rare. They're due to genetic mutations that occur in less than 2 percent of all Alzheimer's disease. Nevertheless, it's a very virulent form of the disease, and certainly when it occurs at that very young age, it shortens the life expectancy considerably.

PETER DAVIES, PhD: Most people didn't consider Alzheimer's disease in somebody who was, let's say, 70 or 75. The word "senility", "organic brain syndrome", hardening of the arteries of the brain, those are the terms that we used 10-15 years ago in the older age group.

DAVID MARKS, MD: How do you diagnose it? What are the symptoms or the signs, for the person out there who may be worried about a family member who's maybe forgetting things a little too frequently?

NORMAN RELKIN, MD: Alzheimer's is called an amnestic dementia, and that's because in the majority of cases the first symptom is forgetfulness. It's a particular kind of forgetfulness.