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Alois Alzheimer devoted himself to psychiatry, neuropathology and research into mental illnesses.
8 hours ago
In 1901, the lives of neuropsychiatrist Alois Alzheimer and Auguste Deter intersected. Years later, the patient made the doctor famous around the world.
Before his eyes, the neuropsychiatrist had a strange case that he had never seen before.
“The patient sits in bed with a helpless face. What’s her name? August. What’s your husband’s name? August, I think. Apparently she didn’t understand the question.”
Loss of memory and understanding, aphasia, disorientation, unpredictable behavior, paranoia and severe psychosocial disability were some of the symptoms presented by the 51yearold German housewife.
After accompanying her for a long time, the psychiatrist diagnosed her with a disease that was unknown at the time, but now affects millions of people around the world.
He called it the “forgetting disease”.
The beginning
You’ve probably heard the word Alzheimer’s many times in your life.
But it’s also likely that you know little or nothing about the doctor who discovered (and named) it.
Alois Alzheimer was born on June 14, 1864 in a small town in the state of Bavaria.
At the express wish of his father, a notary by profession, he began his medical studies in Berlin, the capital of Germany.
A year later he decided to return to his hometown to complete his studies at the University of Würzburg in 1887.
Since then he has devoted himself to psychiatry, neuropathology and the study of mental illnesses.
Shortly after graduating at the age of 23, he was hired as a private practitioner for a woman suffering from mental disorders. With her he undertook a fivemonth journey, which enabled him to closely follow the development of the disease.
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In 1888, Alois Alzheimer was a doctor at the Psychiatric Clinic in Frankfurt
After this experience, he was employed by a municipal institution for dementia and epileptics in the German city of Frankfurt.
There he specialized in the study of the tissues of the human body and the cerebral cortex.
He also met the renowned neuropathologist Franz Nissl, with whom he shared a laboratory and developed a deep friendship.
The two researchers conducted several neuropathological studies on patients with mental disorders.
In 1894, Alzheimer married Nathalie Geisenheimer, with whom he had three children. The scientist was widowed in 1902.
In the early 20th century, Alzheimer’s was “obsessed with the idea that psychiatric disorders were like other diseases,” Conrad Maurer, professor emeritus of psychiatry at Goethe University Frankfurt, told the BBC.
He said that “just as there are diseases of the body, there are diseases of the brain.”
According to Maurer, the psychiatrist was determined to find a case to prove it.
And there she met Auguste Deter, who from 1901 had become forgetful, delusional and screamed or cried for hours in the middle of the night.
When Alzheimer met her, he said, “That’s my case,” Maurer said.
The neuropsychiatrist kept a detailed medical history of Deter, which was found in the 1990s by Maurer’s team, who was director of the same psychiatric hospital where Alzheimer’s worked.
The psychiatrist had handwritten all his questions and observations about the patient’s condition.
“I show her a pencil, a pen, a purse, some keys, a journal and a cigarette and she correctly identifies them.”
“If she has to write Dona Auguste D., she writes Dona and then we have to repeat the other words because she forgets.”
“The patient gets stuck writing and repeats, ‘I’m lost.'”
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Auguste Deter was the world’s first Alzheimer’s patient
recognition
Auguste Deter lived in the hospital for another five years. In the end I was completely insane.
She died on April 8, 1906.
According to Maurer, shortly after her death, the woman’s brain was thoroughly analyzed by a psychiatrist.
Alzheimer’s caused many plaques that can still be examined under the microscope today.
The most important thing the psychiatrist found in Auguste’s brain was that the cerebral cortex was narrower than normal (it was atrophic). He also discovered the accumulation of plaques and neurofilaments that explained his illness.
To this day, “we believe that’s the cause of the evil,” says Maurer.
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Almost a century later, psychiatrist Maurer led an investigation that reexamined Auguste’s case. In the picture we see him showing Doctor Alzheimer’s original portfolio
About six months after Auguste’s death, Alzheimer gave an important case presentation at the 37th South German Psychiatric Congress, in which he described how the patient’s cognitive decline had progressed, what neurological symptoms she had, as well as delusions, hallucinations, and her progressive psychosocial incompetence.
In this lecture, the psychiatrist described for the first time a form of dementia which, at the suggestion of another specialist, was later called Alzheimer’s disease.
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Alois Alzheimer died in 1915 at the age of 51.
The doctor died in 1915 at the age of 51, unaware that Auguste’s disease would one day affect the lives of millions and spark a huge international research effort.
Scientists credit him not only for discovering the neurodegenerative disease, but also for the importance of his innovative research method, since the pathological diagnosis of dementia is still based on the same research methods used in 1906.