According to a recent Johns Hopkins report, Alzheimer's patients who have either high blood pressure or atrial fibrillation (an abnormal heart rhythm) seem to decline faster than those who don't. In the study, some patients with hypertension showed a rate of memory loss about two times faster than those with normal blood pressure. For some patients with atrial fibrillation, memory decline increased by 75 percent. The findings suggest that blood pressure medications—long believed to delay the onset of Alzheimer's—may also help slow memory decline for certain people.