Book description
A short, easily understandable account of Alzheimer's, by world
expert Dr Andrew Lees
Britain like the rest of the developed world is in the grip of a
silent plague. Its thousands of victims can no longer make sense of
the world and are contained for their own safety in fading Victorian
piles and nondescript redbrick detention centres around the country.
For them the present is a foreign country and the past a lost continent.
There are now more people in the UK with Alzheimer's than the
population of Liverpool, and four million Americans are reported to
have the disease. Longevity is a major factor in the increasing
incidence of the disease, with the number of over 65s in the UK having
trebled in the last 100 years, and forecast to double again in the
next 25 years. With such an alarming background, the race to find the
causes - and therefore potentially a cure - for Alzheimer's is urgent.
In this Penguin Special, Dr Andrew Lees, a world expert on the
neurodegenerative diseases, explains what we know, and don't know,
about Alzheimer's and its amelioration. The drugs that are currently
available do not do enough to help, and the various physical and
mental exercises we are encouraged to undertake are unproven. Yet it's
not entirely a black picture: scientific endeavour has greatly
increased our knowledge of the disease's spread and rate of
deterioration, and the composition of the starchy plaques and the
mechanism of the bindweed tangles in the brain which are core to the
illness are much better understood.
Alzheimer's is tough even to contemplate. But it represents one of
the greatest medical mysteries of our age, and Andrew Lees's book
provides a fascinating account of our knowledge of this terrible
disease to this point.
Dr Andrew Lees is Professor of Neurology at the National Hospital
for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London, and Clinical Director of the
Queen Square Brain Bank for Neurological Disorders. His major
scientific research has been carried out in the field of dementias and
Parkinson's disease.
His book Ray of Hope (Penguin, 1998), about the Liverpool and
England footballer Ray Kennedy who suffers from Parkinson's, was
shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. As
well as several scientific works, he has written a social history of
Liverpool, The Hurricane Port (Random House, 2011). A native of
St Helens, Lancashire, he lives in north London.
Dr Andrew Lees is Professor of Neurology at the National Hospital
for Neurology and Neurosurgery, London, and Clinical Director of the
Queen Square Brain Bank for Neurological Disorders. His major
scientific research has been carried out in the field of dementias and
Parkinson's disease.
His book Ray of Hope (Penguin, 1998), about the Liverpool and
England footballer Ray Kennedy who suffers from Parkinson's, was
shortlisted for the William Hill Sports Book of the Year Award. As
well as several scientific works, he has written a social history of
Liverpool, The Hurricane Port (Random House, 2011).
A native of St Helens, Lancashire, he lives in north London.
