New treatments for Alzheimer's Disease could be this generation's medical miracle

New treatments for Alzheimer's could be this generation's medical miracle, writes The Scotsman’s health correspondent Joseph Anderson.

After decades of stunted progress, there is finally new hope for Alzheimer’s patients and their loved ones.

The drugs used to this point to treat Alzheimer’s were approved 20 years ago. They are symptomatic – they don’t attack the disease pathology itself, they just give slight symptomatic relief for patients.

Now new drugs such as Eli Lilly’s donanemab, Eisai’s lecanemab, and TauRX’s late-stage clinical trial, LUCIDITY, are giving hope that soon new drugs will be available which can slow – and even halt – the progression of Alzheimer’s.

The treatment of degenerative brain diseases could well become the medical marvel of our generation.

Donanemab has been shown to slow down the progression of the disease by up to 35 per cent. Lecanemab has been found to reduce memory decline among patients with early-stage disease, and TauRX’s long-term goal, according to the Aberdeenshire company’s head of medical affairs, is to one day be able to prevent Alzheimer’s from causing impairment in the first place.

Dr Sonya Miller said: “Our long-term aim, once we have proven [our treatment] and got it out into the population, is to say ‘look, this works across everybody’, that we can stop the progression, then you can look at introducing it at an earlier stage.

“So it becomes prophylactic. You can say to patients you won't ever reach this point [of disease progression]. You won't lose that function.

“You do screening with diagnostic tests and blood biomarkers. That's the ultimate aim – that you stop people ever getting to the point of having impairment.”

This new wave of drugs is coupled with a desire from governments to update their dementia strategies. The Scottish Government’s new dementia strategy, 'Everyone's Story', recognises dementia as a condition of the brain that affects the whole person, while upscaling efforts to address its mental health and wellbeing impacts.

This includes support pre and post-diagnosis, actions to enable more people to live well in their communities, involving those affected in the design and delivery of their own support, and access to care from a skilled and “trauma-informed” workforce when appropriate.

The strategy, launched during Dementia Awareness Week, is a joint publication by the Scottish Government and council umbrella body, the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (Cosla).

The Government’s mental wellbeing minister, Maree Todd, said the strategy “sets out what we want to achieve and the difference we want to make to people’s lives”.

“Diagnosis can bring significant mental health and wellbeing challenges that need to be acknowledged and addressed to ensure a person’s rights are upheld,” she said.

“That’s why the strategy was developed in collaboration with the National Dementia Lived Experience Panel. We want everyone affected to be involved in its delivery.”

Thanks to all of the above, the treatment of Alzheimer’s could look very different in the near future. The Alzheimer’s Society, a UK Alzheimer’s charity, said treatments like donanemab could one day mean that Alzheimer’s could be likened to other long-term conditions such as asthma or diabetes.

Like the invention of vaccines, chemotherapy and antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV, the treatment of degenerative brain diseases could well become the medical marvel of our generation.