The Alzheimer's Mystery (1999)

By 2000, an estimated 100 million people around the world were afflicted with Alzheimer's disease. First identified in 1906 by German physician Alois Alzheimer, the disease is still in many ways a medical mystery. Alzheimer's has become a dangerous menace, striking mainly in rich countries where high standards of living and high-tech healthcare have greatly increased life expectancies. From Rita Hayworth to Ronald Reagan, from Alois Alzheimer's discoveries to the latest work by American and Japanese researchers, from patients cared for at home by their own families to ultramodern institutions specializing in degenerative brain diseases, "The Alzheimer's Mystery" tells both the social and medical story of a devastating disease that one day may be detected as early as conception.