The Good News about Alzheimer's Disease
The MURDOCK Study and Duke University's Joseph and Kathleen Bryan Alzheimer's Disease Research Center collaborate to advance the understanding and treatment of Alzheimer's disease and other memory disorders.
The most recent statistics from the Alzheimer's Association reveal that 5.4 million Americans are living with Alzheimer's disease. By 2050, that number is estimated to reach 16 million. Alzheimer's is the sixth leading cause of death in the country and the fifth among people over the age of 65. With no cure and limited treatment options, the disease is one of the most feared among older Americans.
According to Dr. Kathleen Welsh-Bohmer, director of Duke University's Joseph and Kathleen Bryan Alzheimer's Disease Research Center (Bryan ADRC), there is good news.
"Tremendous progress has been made in terms of understanding the illness," she said, "and a lot of progress has occurred in the development of biomarkers, which will allow us to identify the illness earlier before the symptoms are fully evident. We are also beginning to understand better the underlying causes of the disease, its pathophysiology, which allows us a greater capability to develop targeted treatments which hone in on the fundamental biology of the disease instead of treating the symptoms."
Welsh-Bohmer, who is a clinical neuropsychologist and also a professor of psychiatry at Duke Medical Center, has been with the Bryan Center since 1987. The Bryan ADRC, founded in 1985, is one of 27 Alzheimer's disease research centers in the United States funded by the National Institute of Aging, a division of the National Institutes of Health. The mission of the Bryan ADRC is to advance both research and care for patients affected by memory disorders, which includes Alzheimer's disease.
"One of our goals in developing better treatments has been to improve early disease detection so that we can distinguish Alzheimer's early on from similar effects of normal brain aging," Welsh-Bohmer said. "The rationale is that knowing the early signature, permits early intervention before substantial damage has occurred. Over the last five years, there has been great success in identifying early clinical signatures of the disease that are reliable and strongly predictive of a progressive process like Alzheimer's disease."
In addition, Welsh-Bohmer explained, there is more evidence that the course of the disease is likely modifiable. Risk factors for Alzheimer's disease include conditions that are also risk factors for cardiovascular disease, namely hypertension and diabetes. "We believe that these medical risk conditions are independent risk factors for the development of cognitive disorders and Alzheimer's disease," she said. "We're already beginning to treat those things with the notion that if we can alter cardiovascular risk, that is great. If we can also alter Alzheimer's risk, all the better."
Read more about the Collaboration with the MURDOCK Study.