Short answers, pulled from the story.
Alois Alzheimer discovered the disease in 1901 when he encountered his patient Auguste Deter. He performed an autopsy on Auguste Deter after her death in 1906 and found the microscopic hallmarks of the disease. This marked the first identification of what would eventually be named Alzheimer's disease.
The two abnormal proteins that define the pathology are amyloid beta protein and tau protein. Amyloid beta protein accumulates extracellularly as amyloid plaques, while tau protein forms neurofibrillary tangles inside neurons. These proteins misfold and proliferate in the brain by a prion-like mechanism of seeded protein aggregation.
The strongest genetic risk factor for sporadic Alzheimer's disease is the APOEε4 allele. Between 40% and 80% of people with Alzheimer's disease possess at least one APOEε4 allele, which increases the risk of the disease by three times in heterozygotes and by 15 times in homozygotes.
The yearly cost of caring for a person with dementia ranges from 28,078 to 56,022 dollars for formal medical care and 36,667 to 92,689 dollars for informal care provided by a relative. In the United States, informal family care is estimated to constitute nearly three-fourths of caregiving for people with Alzheimer's disease, costing approximately 18.5 billion hours of care annually.
As of early August 2024, two monoclonal antibodies, donanemab and lecanemab, are approved to target amyloid beta. Lecanemab was approved for sale in Japan, South Korea, China, Hong Kong, and Israel, although not by an advisory body of the European Union on July 26, citing side effects.
The average life expectancy following diagnosis is three to twelve years, with the normal life expectancy for 60 to 70 years old being 23 to 15 years, but for 90 years old it is 4.5 years. Following AD diagnosis, life expectancy ranges from 7 to 10 years for those in their 60s and early 70s, to only about 3 years or less for those in their 90s.