CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Imagine thinking that a loved one has Alzheimer's, only to find out it isn't Alzheimer's at all but a disease that mimics it.

"I thought the end of my life was coming," said 73-year-old Warren Clickner.

Clickner is slowly getting back the life he lost.

"I can't even explain how bad it is when you can't do anything, I mean nothing," he said. "I was very active and all of a sudden I'm just nothing.

Nancy, his wife of 34 years, watched as her husband became a different person.

"I noticed he was less able to navigate, walk around. He was having some memory problems at that time," she said.

As a nurse, Nancy feared age had gotten the best of her husband.

"Yeah, I thought it was Alzheimer's," she said.

But for months Nancy couldn't get Warren to see a doctor. A fall in his bathroom gave him no choice.

"There was no way I could get up, so she called the ambulance and they took me to the hospital, and that's when they discovered that I had something wrong," Warren said.

It turns out that something was not Alzheimer's after all. It's a disease that mimics it called normal pressure hydrocephalus, or NPH.

"It's a condition in which spinal fluid builds up in the brain for causes we don't always understand," said Dr. Scott McLanahan with Carolina Neurosurgery and Spine Associates.

McLanahan says there are three main symptoms associated with NPH.

"A shuffling gate. It also involves a memory impairment, usually of recent memory, and also bladder control problems," he said.

NPH can usually be detected with an MRI or CT scan. Unlike Alzheimer's, which is difficult to treat, NPH can be treated with surgery, implanting a shunt in the brain.

It's been more than seven months since Warren Clickner had the shunt implanted. The difference, he says, has been life changing. Once again he can cook, drive and get the mail. Even his memory has returned.

As with any surgical procedure there's the risk of infection and the possibility the results may not be what you hoped for.  For more information on normal pressure hydrocephalus, visit http://www.lifenph.com.