A Short History of Alzheimer’s Disease

The story behind the name: Alzheimer’s Disease
By Joe Green
Alzheimer’s disease is named after the German psychologist Alois Alzheimer’s. Whilst it is presented as a twentieth century disease, the brain degeneration, cognitive impairment and disturbing behavioral and psychiatric problems which characterize the disease have most likely been around for centuries.
While Dr. Alzheimer’s is the disease’s namesake, Alzheimer’s colleague Emil Kraepelin played an equally important role in the identification of the disease. Kraepelin isolated and grouped together the symptoms of the disorder, suggesting they were a unique disease process, while Alzheimer was the first to understand what was actually happening in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. He View the rest of this article