It often means interventions opening the doors of our lives to strangers, healthcare providers, whose job it is to assist the elderly in achieving and maintaining the highest quality of life possible until the individual crosses from this existence into the mystery of the next one. Some of the physical conditions that are associated with aging are Alzheimers disease, which while associated with aging can manifest onset well before what many people might view as 'elderly." It is perhaps because it afflicts people at earlier ages that Alzheimers is one of the physical problems associated with aging that receives a lot of attention, and, therefore, more funding than some others areas of health problems associated with aging. Alzheimers is often diagnosed as dementia, an irreversible or reversible condition depending on the specific cause. It is, however, difficult to diagnose and treat because it has numerous potential causes, all of which diminish the individual's ability to experience an independent social and physical lifestyle (Toukko, H., and Hadjistavropoulos, T, 1998, p. 7). Tuokko and Hadjistavropoulos describe it this way:

Dementia has been subclassified in a variety of ways: according to most prominent cognitive features (e.g., amnesic, aphasic, visuoperceptive, global), according to anatomical location (e.g., cortical, subcortical, axial; Joynt & Shoulson, 1979), according to reversibility of the underlying etiologic condition (reversible conditions may include Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus, drug toxicity, thyroid dysfunction, neurosyphilis, B12 deficiency, liver failure; irreversible conditions may include Alzheimer's disease, vascular disorders, alcohol-related dementia, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis), and severity of functional deficits (i.e., mild, moderate, severe) (p. 7)."

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