Alzheimer's and brain-imaging

Alzheimer's was first described by a German psychiatrist and neuropathologist named Alois Alzheimer in 1906. The disease is the most common form of dementia and it is 100% fatal meaning that nobody survives it. In 2006 there were about 26.6 million people worldwide with Alzheimer's and in 2050, 1 in 85 will be expected to have it which would mean that about 100 million people would have it.  Alzheimer's slowly kills the brain and the first and most affected area is the hippocampus. The first sign of the disease is memory loss but since Alzheimer's is a disease that comes with age, people think that the forgetfulness is because of the aging so they feel no reason to be worried. It's not until the person starts forgetting major things that the family or friends are alarmed and feel that something is wrong. Another early sign of Alzheimer's is that the person starts repeating questions or telling the same stories over and over again, even during the same day. If the disease is discovered early enough the patient can be given medicines. These medicines do not cure the person but they can slow down the process of the killing of brain cells. During the middle stage the memory loss keeps getting worse and the patient start forgetting personal history and they also forget who their family and friends are. This can be very hard for the loved ones to witness since they can no longer have the same relationship as they once had with the person. They also easily forget what they were doing or where they were going and they can easily get lost in familiar settings. The patients sometimes get lost in their own yard or they go out to get the mail, but forget what they were doing and don't remember how to get back inside. At this stage personalities might change as well and the sweetest person might become aggressive and grumpy. At the third stage of Alzheimer's the patients can rarely speak and they can no longer take care of themselves. Basic functions shut down one by one and they start loosing abilities like swallowing for example. These patients need around the clock supervision but they will all eventually die, it is just a matter of time. Since Alzheimer's is such a big health issue there are many people studying how Alzheimer's effects the brain with the hopes of getting a better understanding of what happens and most importantly, finding a cure for the disease or find a way to stop it from happening. So far they have not succeeded with either of the two last ones but they did make some helpful findings. Magnetic Resonance Imaging, (MRI) is one of the most common ways to study the brain. MRI's can be used to scan your whole body and by using an MRI you can get very clear images of what the structure of the brain looks like. This means that you can identify if anything seems abnormal in the structure or if the brain is shrinking for example. They also show how the blood flows and can therefore be used to detect any problems with circulation and they are completely safe to use. But there are some weaknesses with MRI's. To start with are they very expansive which means that not everybody can afford it. Another thing is that you have to lie completely still while the machine is scanning your brain, and a scan can take anything from 10 min up to 2 hours. Also a weakness is that they can't say anything about the cause or effects of anything they find so you can't draw any real conclusion, only assumptions. Another method used when studying the brain is Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). MRI's and fMRI's work in very similar ways but the main difference is that an fMRI's show brain activity in all parts of the brain and not just images. But you can't establish cause and effect relationships here either. Another limitation for both MRI's and fMRI's is that it can not be performed in a natural environment. The machines used are huge and they can't be moved. What this means that all the testing is done in labs and never in real life situations.