The search for a cure for dementia continues, but scientific advance in treatment is a landmark moment
Finding a cure for Alzheimer’s disease, the most common form of dementia, is the holy grail of medical research. The incurable malady is – along with other dementias – the leading cause of death in the UK. Until now, no therapy had emerged that could even slow its lethal brain shrinkage, let alone stop or reverse its grim progression. Treating dementia has also been an underfunded cause. By some estimates, more research has been done on Covid in the past three years than on dementia in the past century. Yet this week, a drug that works for Alzheimer’s has appeared on the horizon, raising hopes that there may be some relief from a deadly and cruel condition.
The drug, lecanemab, is a landmark in medicine, and the first treatment to slow cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s patients. People understandably focus on breakthroughs that deliver a cure. Dementia is a frightening disease. It may begin innocuously enough, with a little forgetfulness. But the sickness gnaws away at a person’s mental agility, their memory and ultimately their personality. Patients can end up delusional, incontinent and incapable of looking after themselves. Death arrives on average about eight years after the initial diagnosis. Lecanemab’s effect is modest. In a clinical trial involving 1,800 patients in the early stages of Alzheimer’s, the drug slowed its development over 18 months by about a quarter.
