T costs the U.S. over $82.7 billion annually in medical expenses, round-the-clock care, and lost productivity. That makes Alzheimer's the nation's third most expensive illness, trailing only heart disease and cancer. Indeed, some experts believe that AD/SDAT will eventually become the world's greatest socio-medical problem (4:1169).
Alzheimer's disease is not a new phenomenon. In fact, the disease was familiar to the Hippocratic and Galen schools of physicians (29:2). Regardless though, it wasn't until about the early 20th century that the disease was fully described. At that time, a virtual revolution was occurring in histological method: major advances were being made in both microscopic and staining technologies. Using a silver-based stain developed by Bielschowsky in 1902, Alois Alzheimer was able to demonstrate neuritic plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain of a 51-year-old demented woman. Despite Alois Alzheimer's clinical descriptions (1907, 1911), however, many years passed before people became interested in old-age associated dementia. In fact, it wasn't until industrialization began to alter population trends that the subject became a major focus for research. Then, from about the 1940s to the 1960s, a major divergence of opinion emerged with regard to dementia etiology. Some believed it to be caused by arteriosclerosis and stroke, while others saw it as a component of normal senescence. The former group of researchers focused on the ultrastructural and biochemical characteristics of the neurofibrillary tangles and neuritic plaques. In contrast, senescence group analyzed correlative cliniconeuropathological studies (29:3). Eventually, in the 1960s and 1970s, the ultrastructural studies revealed that the changes characteristic of Alzheimer's (known then as presenile dementia) were the same as those which occurred in senile dementia (2:95). This realization made it thus apparent that Alzheimer's r...