Author of Alzheimer’s Book Sheds Light on the Epidemic

Tom Fudge: Alzheimer's disease is the cause of very serious dementia in elderly people. It's a disease that destroys brain cells, initially affecting short-term memory. Soon after that, it affects language and the most basic cognitive skills, even some functions that would seem to be involuntary, like breathing and swallowing. An estimated 90,000 people in San Diego Country have Alzheimer's. This is a disease that is directly related to old age, and the more old people you have in society, the more people will have this very debilitating disease.

About three percent of 70-year-olds have Alzheimer's disease. By age 77 that percentage grows to 13 percent.

Guest

• David Shenk, author of The Forgetting: Alzheimer's: Portrait of an Epidemic .