An Overview on the Aetiology and Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer’s disease is a disease that mainly leads to the degeneration of cells in the brain and it causes dementia. This reduces thinking capacity and doesn't allow the person to be independently do their own work. Two main causes of AD are cholinergic and amyloid hypothesis. Other risk factors include age, genetics, infections in the brain etc. currently only two types of drugs can treat AD, cholinesterase enzyme inhibitors and NMDA antagonists, but these are only able to treat the symptoms not the whole disease. At this moment the researchers are trying to target several mechanisms such as abnormal tau protein metabolism, inflammation and damage in the cholinergic system.