Alzheimer's disease: an animated, cited guide

This page needs JavaScript for its animations. The outline and key answers are below, and every claim in the full version carries a numbered citation.

Not medical advice. Alzheimer's Companion is an educational synthesis of published literature. It does not replace a clinician.

What is in it

What Alzheimer's is Dementia versus Alzheimer's, who it affects, the numbers.
The brain that forgets Where it starts and how it spreads, stage by stage.
Amyloid, animated From one protein cut to a plaque, and the debate about it.
Tau and the tangle How a scaffold protein turns into a tangle and spreads.
Microglia and the lost synapse Inflammation, pruning, and the strongest link to memory loss.
Genes and inheritance APOE, the dominant families, Down syndrome, and what a test means.
Twenty years before symptoms The biomarker cascade, in order.
Stages and symptoms From no symptoms to severe dementia, function by function.
Diagnosis and biomarkers Criteria, scans, spinal fluid, blood tests and screening tools.
The differential Delirium, vascular, Lewy body, frontotemporal and reversible causes.
Cholinesterase inhibitors and memantine Inside the synapse, and what the benefit really is.
Anti-amyloid antibodies over time Lecanemab and donanemab over 18 months, ARIA and the debate.
Beyond memory Agitation, mood, psychosis and sleep, and the drug cautions.
Lowering the risk The 14 modifiable risk factors and what trials show.
Living with dementia and caregiving Planning, safety, caregivers and the end of life.
Nursing care Assessment, giving the medicines, communication, documentation.
Toward a cure The pipeline, prevention trials, and the evidence for each route.
History and people From Auguste Deter in 1901 to the antibodies.
Flashcards and mnemonics Flip cards by topic.
Quiz Questions with explanations.
Glossary Every term, searchable.
Sources Every reference behind the app.

Part 3 · Treatment

Anti-amyloid antibodies over time

Lecanemab and donanemab are antibodies infused into the blood that help the brain's immune cells clear amyloid plaque. Follow the published trials month by month: plaque falls fast, ARIA (brain swelling or small bleeds on MRI) shows up early, and the clinical benefit appears slowly and stays modest.

Published trial and label information only. Everything here reports what the trials, labels and regulators published. Whether a particular person is eligible, and whether treatment is right for them, are decisions for specialist clinicians together with the person and their family.

Drug

APOE4 copies

Time span

Month

Tissue is schematic, not to scale. Filled dots are published trial values; open dots are sponsor figures or values calculated from published numbers; the lines between them are interpolated shapes. In the open-label view, lecanemab dose ticks after month 18 show the current label's every-4-week maintenance option, not the extension's own schedule.

How big is the benefit?

The same trial numbers are read in two very different ways. Pick a scale, then pick any row to see what it is and how each side reads it. This is a live debate among specialists, so both readings are shown side by side.

Scale

Bars: point estimate. Whiskers: published 95% confidence interval or range. Vertical lines: proposed thresholds.

What each antibody binds, and what happened

Eligibility, ARIA, dosing and the history

Regulatory timeline

Show

A reminder. Labels, eligibility rules and coverage differ between countries and change over time. The published criteria summarised here are for understanding the evidence, not for deciding about any one person. Those decisions belong with specialist clinicians.