Forgetfulness, disorientation, moodiness, poor judgment - these are all things that can happen to a common person on a daily basis. Any person can forget where they put their keys. Any perfectly healthy person can have a bad day and seem to have mood swings. And most definitely, everyone makes bad decisions from time to time. But in the case of Alzheimer's disease, these things cause major problems in a person's life. A person with Alzheimer's may often make bad decisions with money. They often give excessive amounts of money to telemarketers or to salesmen. Then can easily be disorientated. They often forget where they park their cars and then forget where they are going or even what they were doing. In extreme cases, they can even forget very common words or even forget how to talk altogether.
             Alzheimer's disease is the most common form of dementia, affecting around 500,000 people in the UK. In America Alzheimer's disease currently strikes an estimated 4.2 million to 5.8 million. The Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary defines Alzheimer's disease as a degenerative disease of the central nervous system characterized especially by premature senile mental deterioration. In layman's terms, this means that it is a disease that slowly gets worse and worse. What happens is that the central nervous system or the part of the brain and spinal cord where sensory and speech impulses are transmitted from starts to break down. This causes unusual and awkward behavior in the person affected. The term Alzheimer's disease dates back to 1906 when Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a German physician presented a case history before a medical meeting of a 51-year-old female patient who suffered from a rare brain disorder. His autopsy of the patient's brain identified the plaques and tangles that today characterize Alzheimer's disease. The most common characteristics are, memory loss, difficulty performing familiar tasks, problems with language, disorientatio...