What is Alzheimer’s?

As we get older remembering things is not as easy as it used to be. It is normal at any age to misplace an item or forget a name. However, Alzheimer's disease is different than normal aging.

Alzheimer's is a medical illness that affects how your brain works. It causes memory problems that affect day-to-day life such as blocking your ability to:

• Remembering names
• Recalling fond memories
• Performing everyday tasks
• Speaking clearly

Who’s At Risk

Alzheimer's disease can be cause by several factors, including many still undiscovered.
Two known factors which increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease are:

• Advancing age - About 5 in 100 people have Alzheimer's at age 65. By age 80, these odds increase to 1 in 5. By age 90, nearly half of all people have some symptoms of dementia. Although Alzheimer's typically affects people older than 65, it can also affect much younger people. Women are more likely to develop the disease than men - in part, because women live longer
• Heredity - Only 3% of all cases of Alzheimer's have a proven hereditary link. Heredity plays a much larger role in early-onset (before age 65) Alzheimer's. Forty percent of people who develop early-onset Alzheimer's have a family history of the disease. Even if you have family members with Alzheimer's, you're not certain to develop it. Researchers have linked the more common late-onset form of Alzheimer's to the protein apolipoprotein E. Everybody typically inherits two copies of this gene. If you carry a particular variation of this gene, you're at higher risk of Alzheimer's. But you're not certain to develop it.

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