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Chapter 1 Introduction 3
health problem as the population ages, and the cost of caring increases. The World
Alzheimer Report 2010 (Wimo and Prince, 2010) estimated the global prevalence of
35.6 million people affected by the Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia
in 2010, and predicted the number to double every twenty years, to 65.7 million by
2030 and 115.4 million by 2050. In France, the prevalence of dementia is estimated
to be 754 000 people in 2010, and would rise to 1.8 million in 2050 (Mura et al.,
2010).
Figure 1.1: Cortical atrophy in Alzheimer’s brain (right), as compared with
the normal brain (left). Image source: Pathology Education Instructional Resource
(PEIR) Digital Library (Pathology image database). © Dr. Peter Anderson,
University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Pathology.
The knowledge about the disease has been greatly advanced since Dr. Aloïs Alzheimer
(1864–1915) first described his eponymous condition in 1906 (Alzheimer, 1911).
The patient, Auguste D, with dementia symptoms, was 51 years old when ad-
mitted by Alzheimer (For an account of the case see Maurer et al., 1997). The
necropsy revealed neuritic plaques, neurofibrillary tangles, which are now recog-
nized as the hallmarks of the AD. The main component of the plaque has been