successful vaccine/treatment for Alzheimer's

I was going to write about suicide today (a guy I know killed himself last week), but then I found an article that made me cry in a different way.  Scientists in Sweden have a vaccine that works for Alzheimer's disease that is also a treatment for mild to moderate AD.
I'm going to say it again, a little louder.


Scientists in Sweden have a vaccine that works for Alzheimer's disease that is also a treatment for mild to moderate AD.

The prevailing hypothesis about its cause involves APP (amyloid precursor protein), a protein that resides in the outer membrane of nerve cells and that, instead of being broken down, form a harmful substance called beta-amyloid, which accumulates as plaques and kills brain cells.....The new treatment, which is presented in Lancet Neurology, involves active immunisation, using a type of vaccine designed to trigger the body's immune defence against beta-amyloid...modified to affect only the harmful beta-amyloid. The researchers found that 80 per cent of the patients...developed their own protective antibodies against beta-amyloid without suffering any side-effects over the three years of the study. The researchers believe that this suggests that the CAD106 vaccine is a tolerable treatment for patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's. 


please, please, please let this be true. let this scourge end.

Alzheimer's and Dementia Clinicial Studies--Pay it Forward

A friend of mine sent me a link about Alzheimer's recently, and I was surprised--shocked--horrified--to read that new drugs and other treatments can't find enough volunteers.   I can't believe that.  We would have signed a deal with the devil himself if he had agreed to give my dad a drug that would have given him a chance at a longer, healthier life.
I don't know how most of these trials work, but I know that the one my dad was part of did NOT make him STOP taking his medicine, it only added new medicine.  And when we found out at the end that he was on the placebo, he received the real drug then.
The Alzheimer's Association now has a web page that helps match volunteers with clinical trials.  I'm lucky enough to live near New Haven and to have had access to Yale University for my dad's studies, but if you don't live around here that doesn't mean you shouldn't try.   There are even trials to sign up for healthy people who don't have AD--I added myself to their data bank.
Being in a clinical trial is about paying it forward.  I knew that the drug would probably not help my dad.  But down the line, it might have saved someone else from my family's pain.
image source
I am still accepting donations for my Walk to End Alzheimer's team--the walk is October 2, 2011.  If you are not already doing the walk and haven't donated to anyone, I'd appreciate anything.  This is my first year having a team and I'd love to show up with a lot of money to prove you don't have to be a corporation to raise funds. Click the to the left (or in my sidebar) to donate.

123 no more Alzheimer's study

My mom had to take my dad out of the Alzheimer's study at Yale. I was (am) so sad to hear that. The people at the study were a great resource for her, very helpful. But my dad's violent reactions (not just a metaphor, but truly violent) to being taken into New Haven for the tests, and for the serum, were getting worse and worse. Yesterday on the way he was hitting my mother as she was driving on the highway and screaming at her. She can't do it anymore. She won't do it, and I don't blame her. That kind of reaction in him could cause a car accident.
He only got one dose (out of 9) of the serum. But he was so disruptive at the hospital that the people at the study had already made the decision to ask him to leave if he acted that way again. On the one hand, you'd think they would understand his behavior/reactions (aren't they trying to study this disease!?) but on the other hand, someone screaming and yelling and making a huge fuss in the hospital is inappropriate.
I felt like the serum may have been helping him. Then again at the time when he got his first/only dose, he also went on a 3x higher dosage of anti-anxiety drugs so I might have just been seeing that.