Alzheimer's 100th anniversary of death and his contribution to a better understanding of Senile dementia

• Main Authors: Eliasz Engelhardt, Marleide da Mota Gomes
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Academia Brasileira de Neurologia (ABNEURO) 2015-02-01
• Series: Arquivos de Neuro-Psiquiatria
• Subjects: demência; Demência senil; história da medicina; Alzheimer; doença de Alzheimer
• Online Access: http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0004-282X2015000200159&lng=en&tlng=en

Initially the trajectory of the historical forerunners and conceptions of senile dementia are briefly presented, being highlighted the name of Alois Alzheimer who provided clinical and neuropathological indicators to differentiate a group of patients with Senile dementia. Alzheimer's examination of Auguste D’s case, studied by him with Bielschowsky’s silver impregnation technique, permitted to identify a pathological marker, the intraneuronal neurofibrillary tangles, characterizing a new disease later named after him by Kraepelin – Alzheimer’s disease. Over the time this disorder became one of the most important degenerative dementing disease, reaching nowadays a status that may be considered as epidemic.