It is time to make the fight against Alzheimer!

Alzheimer’s disease leads to nerve cell death and tissue loss throughout the brain. Over time, the brain shrinks dramatically, affecting nearly all its functions.

These images show:

• A brain without the disease

• A brain with advanced Alzheimer’s

• How the two brains compare

In the Alzheimer brain:

• The cortex shrivels up, damaging areas involved in thinking, planning and remembering.

• Shrinkage is especially severe in the hippocampus, an area of the cortex that plays a key role in formation of new memories.

• Ventricles (fluid-filled spaces within the brain) grow larger.

Alzheimer tissue has many fewer nerve cells and synapses than a healthy brain.

• Plaques, abnormal clusters of protein fragments, build up between nerve cells.

• Dead and dying nerve cells contain tangles, which are made up of twisted strands of another protein.

In the earliest stages, before symptoms can be detected with current tests, plaques and tangles begin to form in brain areas involved in:

• Learning and memory

• Thinking and planning

Plaques and tangles also spread to areas involved in:

• Speaking and understanding speech

• Your sense of where your body is in relation to objects around you

As Alzheimer’s progresses, individuals may experience changes in personality and behavior and have trouble recognizing friends and family members.

Alzheimer's is not simply memory loss. Alzheimer's is not normal aging. Alzheimer's is fatal, progressive and there is no cure.

It is time to make the fight against Alzheimer