Alzheimer's disease (presenile dementia) was originally regarded as a clinical and pathologic entity. Recent reports of the occurrence of the disease as early as the second and third decades of life, however, preclude the conception of this syndrome as a presenile phenomenon. The following report is presented because of its unusual clinical and pathologic interest. It is unique in that it concerns the appearance of the disease in several members of a family and in two generations. We made both clinical and pathologic studies of one member of this group.
REPORT OF CASE
History and Course.
—Louis R., Jr. (no. 13 in the genealogical chart, fig. 5), the patient whom we examined and whose brain we studied, was born in 1895 and was always in good health except for some disturbance in the ears during the three years previous to admission to the Traverse City State Hospital. He left school