I have read that the metaphysical cause of alzheimer's is it is a means of escape for the person. Gradually the person is less and less cognitive of life till they finally have total escape. No people don't ask for the disease but perhaps deep inside they don't want to deal with something any more.
Disease split down is dis-ease.
"Death where is thy sting". There is only a physical death and the spirit/consciousness/soul lives on.
I also don't believe in a punishing God. Why would God give us free will then send us to hell for using it? Sorry but I don't think God would do that. These are my thoughts about it after realizing God is total unconditional love.

i thng i lern evry alz/dem ersn persenn its got is diftrtn thy all say weid thngs coz thy dnt no thy sayin it
boooks dnt tell u full stroy thy dnt only way u lern abot it is sean it st hnd yore slf
iv sean mom go frm fogetin thngs thn getin dignoz of dem/alz lsoin 0 40 yrs of prt of her memmry

its a 100 % spiritual event its the soul detaching it self from the body / brain
and its incarnated functions disintegrate . people who do this cant survive in the situation they are in . cant deal with the conscious energies that are way to different than what they have settled in and got used too ,The energy environment has changed to much , that's Alzheimer , Parkinson is different its karma of a kind of energy stealing , a kind in which the person rules over others in a wrong way and eventually breaks him down, so miss use of collective energy

Ayurveda deeply deciphers this disease. Direct ratio with food.

Would you care to elaborate, or point to a book or website that discuss it?

You might be interested in reading the book Stop Alzheimer's Now! by Bruce Fife.

Why it happens? The same unknown reason why all other diseases happen. But Alzheimer is a physical condition, so I guess the soul in the afterlife isn't affected by it since it's non-physical.

I have to agree with lynn when we pass our ailments stay here.

Namaste

My mom always feared death...after an NDE in 1954 and it was very scary...
my mom was raised with the fear of a hell from her Catholic stuff...
she also was not what you would say a 'good person'.
Thus, she had huge guilt covered over with bitterness and meanness.
Being her caregiver ...I saw how her dementia made her forget all her badness...it made it
easier for her to pass over peacefully in her bed.


That's my input. :)

Doesn't it perhaps indicate that the soul/spirit consciousness and the body/human consciousness are two very separate thing? One will cease to exist (our sense of being alive) while the other takes a copy of us on for its own learning?
That isn't necessarily what I ascribe to, but I have wondered about diseases that affect the brain and why they would change us, if we were immutable eternal spiritual consciousness.