Alzheimer's disease

Writer Greg O'Brien was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease five years ago. He describes what it was like to hear the news — and break it to his family.

As his disease advances, Greg O'Brien finds his personality shifting, too. "I know I can't go back to who I was before," he says. "I've got to learn to live with the new me."

Six years after he was diagnosed with both cancer and Alzheimer's, Greg O'Brien is beginning to talk to his doctor, and to his family, about his "exit strategy" for the final years of his life.

Older people with low levels of vitamin D are likely to lose memory and executive function more quickly, a study finds. But it didn't look into whether taking supplements could help.

Eight people who received growth hormone treatments made from human brains died decades later from a rare disease. Some also had brain damage similar to that seen in Alzheimer's, autopsies reveal.

In his new book, The Man Who Wasn't There, Anil Ananthaswamy examines the ways people think of themselves — and how those perceptions can be distorted by certain brain conditions.

Researchers at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference say there's growing evidence that women are more likely than men of the same age to develop Alzheimer's disease.

Things like activity trackers and sensors might make it easier to keep people with dementia safe and help caregivers. Researchers are going to test that idea in the real world.

People in their 60s and 70s who followed the Mediterranean diet for four years held steady on cognitive tests, a study found. But the test scores of people following a lower-fat diet went down.

In an eight-year study of older people, those who had held mentally demanding, stimulating jobs tended to retain their mental agility better than people whose work was less stimulating.

A jury in Iowa acquitted a man who had been criminally charged for having sex with his wife, who had Alzheimer's. Very few care facilities have policies on dementia, sex and consent.