… could be available to patients within four years …
After 50 weeks, those with both mild and moderate Alzheimer’s who were taking rember experienced 81 per cent less mental decline compared with those on the placebo.
Those taking rember did not experience any significant decline in their mental function over 19 months, while those on the placebo got worse.
I’m sure the poky process of bringing promising therapies to market has its positive features, but, in this case, the prognosis for the untreated is so grim that most and probably all would gladly trade the potential risks for the possibility of help.
I tend to think the rules should be different for patients whose alternative to being a voluntary guinea pig is the normal progression of Alzheimer’s.
That said, I hate the name of this drug. No, seriously. It looks exactly like how someone with a dwindling mental capacity would write “remember.”
My mother had Pick’s disease, a form of dementia like Alzheimers. Much worse, however, is the familial Alzheimers that runs in one branch of my family (not related to me by blood). My uncle, his sister, his mother all had it and the children in the family (my age group) can be absolutely certain than one or more of them will develop it. In fact, I learned just last week that a cousin (in her late 50s) has begun to show symptoms and is now on medication.
After watching my mother deterioriate, I’d give anything to have had a drug that would have helped, or that would now take away some of the fear that her children have of developing the disease. Still, I work closely with a clinical research group and I understand why it takes so long to get drugs onto the market. This is very hopeful news but I don’t want them to skip any steps!
Understood.
I am in a position to understand the need for immediacy however, and 4 years is probably too late.
However, that’s just how the cookie crumbled in this case. I have great hope for the future and my children even though we don’t–most fortunately–fall into that familial Alzheimer’s category.
It was not until you said this that I realized that the drug was not
called “remember”. Awful. I can’t pronounce “rember” without
slipping in the extra syllable. And why the lower-case?
A Frenchman leading a team at a Scottish university with a company based in Singapore…