By Lona O'Connor
With no cure yet available, and few ways to stall its progress, Alzheimer’s disease has passed cancer as the disease most feared by Americans, according to 2015 surveys.
Alzheimer’s steals memory and thinking ability and eventually kills its victims. In 2015, an estimated 35 million people worldwide have the disease. By 2050, as more people live longer, that number could grow to 131.5 million —or one out of 85 people globally.
For people ages 85 to 95, the chance of developing Alzheimer’s is nearly 50 percent.
Caring for an Alzheimer’s patient takes an emotional and financial toll on millions more — the caregivers and families.
Michael Tuchman is one of thousands of doctors involved in medical trials that could find a cure. He is screening and evaluating test subjects in five current trials.
“There is reason to be optimistic,” said Tuchman, a board-certified neurologist and psychiatrist who practices in Palm Beach Gardens.
Amyloid, a protein that collects in the brains of Alzheimer’s victims, is currently the “prime therapeutic target,” according to the journal Nature.
“After 30 years of research, we have moved in the last 12 years to ‘Let’s move that amyloid out of there,’ ” Tuchman said.
Two strategies are among those being tested: preventing the buildup of amyloid, and finding ways to flush it out of the body.
Certain trials have isolated mouse antibodies that prevent the accumulation of amyloids. Other researchers are transferring protective antibodies from the small percentage of humans who seem to be genetically immune to Alzheimer’s. If the mouse and human trials prove successful, it will be possible to slow the disease with an injection.
When Alois Alzheimer, a German psychiatrist, conducted autopsies on abnormal brains, he identified three cases of the disease that now bears his name. All three cases involved people younger than 60. Alzheimer, who died in 1915, was not able to predict that the disease would occur more often in older people, because few people of his era lived past 60.
Even in the middle of the 20th century, Alzheimer’s was seldom seen.
“When I went to medical school in the ’60s, I was told it was something you’ll never see, and that’s what I told my students 10 years later,” Tuchman said.
A hundred years after Alzheimer’s death, the only definitive test for the disease is the same: an autopsy that shows the presence of amyloid proteins and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain.
However, there are now much better ways to diagnose Alzheimer’s early in its progression, Tuchman said.
“We are now able to determine with a 90 to 95 percent confidence level,” he said. “That gives us hope.”
Tuchman and his colleagues make their diagnoses based on family history, the existence of Parkinson’s disease and previous strokes, among other indicators.
Patients can be given MRI, CT and PET scans and spinal taps to indicate the presence of amyloids. Doctors can also determine if the problem is Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia, which can be caused by strokes, for example.
Since Alzheimer’s results in permanent brain damage, early detection gives the most hope for slowing its progress with drugs now available. The best people to notice early symptoms are people who see the patient every day: family and friends.
Recent studies show that the brain remains elastic longer than previously thought. So, an old dog can learn new tricks — and should, to keep the brain cells firing. Puzzles, games, learning new languages, reading and other brain work all keep the “old” brain working better.
Studies also show that exercise benefits brain health, and not just because it improves circulation.
For more information, visit www.alz.org.
Lona O’Connor has a lifelong interest in health and healthy living. Send column ideas to Lona13@bellsouth.net.
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