Screening specific groups of people who are either totally without symptoms or who have symptoms that prompt a search for disease in its earliest stages has been a part of preventive medicine in the UK for about seventy years, since the regular examination of schoolchildren was first introduced on a national basis. Shortly afterwards-during World [...]

There are many legal matters that are important, some of which crop up unexpectedly, such as the appropriateness of continuing to drive a car. This chapter, however, is concerned principally with the power of attorney regulations and the working of the Court of Protection. It is surprising how many people fail to consider the need [...]

Everyone needs to eat a well-balanced and nutritious diet. This is particularly important as a person gets older because the body is not quite so good at utilizing the essential foodstuffs as it was earlier in life. Many relatives become worried because the person they are looking after becomes less interested in food and may [...]

Eventually many if not all people with dementia will lose track of time. This can lead to many difficulties for relatives and carers. A sufferer may well forget when he or she last ate, when bedtime is, accuse you of having been away for hours when in fact you have only been absent for a [...]

Some of the earliest research into Alzheimer’s disease involved examining the structural abnormalities that occurred in the brain and which were visible through a microscope. As more powerful equipment such as the electron microscope became available, the most detailed structural changes within the cells themselves came under scrutiny. Our research into the structural abnormalities has [...]

Alois Alzheimer was a pathologist with a particular interest in the changes caused by diseases of the nervous system. Born in Bavaria in 1864, he studied medicine in three German universities — Wurzburg, Tubingen, and Berlin – receiving his MD in 1887. At this stage he was working on the glands in the ear that [...]