How Arizona is fighting Alzheimer’s disease
Alzheimer’s appears to be getting more attention lately. Why?
Alzheimer’s takes a devastating toll on our patients and an intolerable toll on family caregivers. With the rapidly growing number of people living to older ages, there is an urgency to prevent it as quickly as possible.
Can people do anything to reduce the odds of getting Alzheimer’s?
A number of strategies have been suggested, but not yet proven, to reduce a person’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s symptoms. Some of the suggestions with other health-promoting benefits include aerobic exercise, education, mental and social activity, the treatment of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and obesity and smoking cessation.
How do you anticipate your partnership with ASU will advance research?
The partnership will enable us to build the ASU-Banner Neurodegenerative Disease Research Center, one of the world’s largest science programs in the fight against Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases, at ASU. It will also allow us to leverage and further develop clinical and research programs at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute, Banner Sun Health Research Institute and other organizations in the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium.
Tell us about the initiatives at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute.
Banner Alzheimer’s Institute established the Alzheimer’s Prevention Initiative to help accelerate the evaluation of promising prevention therapies. With support from the National Institutes of Health, industry partners and philanthropy, the initiative includes international prevention trials of anti-amyloid medication and immunization therapies in people who, based on their genetic background and age, are at high imminent risk for the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms. It also includes several related strategies to find effective prevention therapies as quickly as possible.
Clinical programs at Banner Alzheimer’s Institute are intended to better address the medical and non-medical needs of our patients and their family caregivers. The Banner Dementia Care Initiative is intended to help establish a new national standard of dementia care by demonstrating its value, generalizability and sustainability in the emerging population-based health care financing system.
What is the the Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium?
The Arizona Alzheimer’s Consortium is the nation’s leading model of statewide collaboration in Alzheimer’s disease research. It includes researchers from ASU, University of Arizona, Barrow Neurological Institute, Mayo Clinic, Translational Genomics Research Institute, BSHRI and BAI. It is our sincere hope Arizona will help pave the scientific road to a world without Alzheimer’s disease.
How promising are the disease prevention trials?
The Alzheimer’s Prevention Initiative is evaluating investigational immunization and medication treatments that interfere with the accumulation of the beta-amyloid protein in the brain. If the amyloid hypothesis is correct, we have a fighting chance to find an effective Alzheimer’s prevention therapy within the next 10 years. There is no guarantee that the treatments will work, but there is only one way to find out.
More than 100,000 people signed up for your registry. What is its purpose?
The Alzheimer’s Prevention Registry (www.endALZnow.org) is intended to provide information about the latest developments in Alzheimer’s prevention research, to let the public know about prevention trials and other research programs, and where to get more information. It is intended to support the enrollment of interested individuals in prevention trials and help us find a way to end this disease as quickly as possible.