Literary Hub
Alzheimer’s is named for Dr. Alois Alzheimer, a German psychiatrist who, according to the National Institute on Aging, “noticed changes in the brain of a woman who died of an unusual mental illness.” Her symptoms included memory loss, language problems, and unpredictable behavior. After she died, he examined her brain and found many abnormal clumps (now called amyloid plaques) and tangled bundles of fibers (now called neurofibrillary tangles.) These features, which Dr. Alzheimer observed in 1906, remain defining pathologies of Alzheimer’s.