"retrogenesis" = reverse childhood

From Jonathan Cott's book, on the sea of memory: a journey from forgetting to remembering.

An interesting precise inverse relationship exists between the stages of Alzheimer's and phases of child development in the areas of cognition, language, feeding, and behavior.

Alzheimer's unravels the brain almost exactly in the reverse order as it develops from birth, revealing a kind of reverse childhood in a process that Barry Reisberg (an NYU neurologist) terms "retrogenesis." The charts, as paraphrased in David Shenk's book, The Forgetting are:

Child Development

Age: Acquired Ability

1-3 months: can hold up head
2-4 months: can smile
6-10 months: can sit up without assistance
1 year: can walk without assistance
1 year: can speak one word
15 months: can speak five to six words
2-3 years: can control bowels
3-4.5 years: can control urine
4 years: can use toilet without assistance
4-5 years: can adjust bath water temperature
4-5 years: can put on clothes without assistance
5-7 years: can select proper clothing for occasion or season
8-12 years: can handle simple finances
12+ years: can hold a job, prepare meals, etc.

and

Alzheimer's Disease

Stage: Lost Ability

1: no difficulty at all
2: some memory trouble begins to affect job/home
3: much difficulty maintaining job performance
4: can no longer hold a job, prepare meals, handle personal finances, etc.
5: can no longer select proper clothing for occasion or season
6a: can no longer put on clothes properly
6b: can no longer adjust bath water temperature
6c: can no longer use toilet without assistance
6d: urinary incontinence
6e: fecal incontinence
7a: speech now limited to six or so words per day
7b: speech now limited to one word per day
7c: can no longer walk without assistance
7d: can no longer sit up without assistance
7e: can no longer smile
7f: can no longer hold up head