Omental transposition in treatment of Alzheimer disease.

It is now recognized that Alzheimer disease (AD) is one of the most devastating problems confronting the practice of medicine today. This disease has severe social and economic consequences that will only increase greatly in the future. Currently, there are 1,000 new cases of AD diagnosed daily in the United States. 1 When these patients are added to the 4.5 million Americans already diagnosed with AD, coupled with the expected arrival of future millions of " baby boomers, " many of whom will get AD, the result in costs to individuals and government will be in the multiple billions of dollars. BACKGROUND The neurodegenerative effects of AD have been well-established, but, because the exact cause of AD remains unknown, it is difficult to develop programs to prevent and treat the disease with any degree of precision. What is known is that in the brain of a patient with AD, there are, at any one time, three neuronal states: normally functioning neurons, dead neurons, and neurons that are slowly deteriorating. The goal in prevention and treatment of AD will be to maintain the viability of normal cerebral neurons and improve neuronal function, or at least prevent it from deteriorating. AD is a disease in which neurons die slowly during the course of many years. The dementia that eventually occurs as a hallmark of the disease begins to manifest itself when there is loss in the critical mass of neurons located in key regions of the brain that are responsible for cognitive function. When these critically located cerebral neurons lose function during the course of time, dementia can eventually result.