Until recently, nothing seemed to slow the inexorable mental decline of people with Alzheimer's disease.

But as researchers have learned more about the development of Alzheimer's, they have identified several promising treatments. The FDA has approved two of these treatments, and scientists are developing many more.

Treatment of Alzheimer's disease is still in its infancy, and experts are quick to concede that they have a long way to go. But today, for the first time, researchers have become cautiously optimistic that in the not-too-distant future, new treatments should be able to delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease, and slow the mental deterioration it causes. Many predict that within the next decade or so, it will become a reasonably manageable chronic illness, rather like diabetes or asthma.