It took me a long time to understand why my great grandmother would wander the streets at times not knowing who or what anything is or who we are. When the doctors finally made my parents aware that my great grandmother had developed Alzheimer disease, we were not sure how to handle this disease. Experiencing seeing someone you love going through these changes can truly be heart broken and change everyone’s life. This is a disease that you really don’t know how the patient will wake up the next morning knowing who she/he is or who you are.

Alzheimer's disease is a loss of memory and it can be temporary or permanent depending on how severe the case is. The cause of Alzheimer's disease is currently unknown, but researchers believe that it is one of the following, a slow virus, an auto immune reaction or a biochemical imbalance in the brain. By looking at the brains of Alzheimer patients under the microscope, researchers have found that they have abnormal deposits of a protein called "amyloid. This plaque may also be a cause of Alzheimer's disease; this plaque creates an unbalance of proteins. Studies have shown that this amyloid is neurotoxic (poisons brain cells) and is the reason why the brain deteriorates. It has also been found that amyloid conflicts with normal brain functioning.

There are seven stages of Alzheimer’s Disease: Normal Outward behavior, Very Mild Changes, Mild Decline, Moderate Decline, Moderately Severe decline, Severe Decline and Very Severe Decline. On each step of these stages you start to lose your memory little by little. There are some patients that as the days go by their loss of memory begin to enhance. They could have some good days just as they can have some bad ones as well.

As stated by an article in WEBMD “Alzheimer’s Disease Heath Center & Stages of Alzheimer’s Disease”, the Alzheimer’s Foundation is under way to find new treatments to stop, slow down even prevent Alzheimer’s. New drugs take years to produce from concept to market and because drugs that seem promising in early stages may not work as hoped in large-scale trials, it is critical that Alzheimer’s research continue to accelerate.

Currently there are five FDA approved Alzheimer’s drugs that treat the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. The benefits towards these medications are to temporarily help memory and thinking problems in about half of the people who take them. But it is known that these medications do not treat the underlying causes of Alzheimer’s. There are dangers in concerns with being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. According to Scott Baily at the Alzheimer’s Association he states, “The greatest known risk factor is advancing age”.  While one of nine people age 65 or older has Alzheimer's, nearly one of three people age 85 or older has the disease. One of the greatest mysteries of Alzheimer's disease is why risk rises so dramatically as we grow older. Another strong risk factor is family history. Those who have a parent, brother, sister or children with Alzheimer’s are more likely to develop the disease. The risk increases if more than one family member has the illness. When diseases tend to run in families, either heredity or environmental factors, or both, may play a role.

Alzheimer’s is an intimidating and threatening disease. Possessing the knowledge that I now have is an advantage in being a preventable measure for me. Being that this disease is genetic, my chances of having it are increased. Knowing all of this information about it will help me in the future to be able to detect it early so I can take the proper course of action that will delay the progression of this disease for me. If tragedy ever should strike, by then, hopefully, more curable treatments will exist.