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Number of
patients with Dementia on the rise
Newswise — At 81, Alberta Sabin’s mind is
not as sharp as it used to be, and she knows
it. Sabin is one of millions of Americans
who experience memory loss and may
eventually be diagnosed with dementia.
She frequently misplaces common items,
forgets names and appointments, some of the
most frustrating aspects of memory loss, she
says.
“I had been looking for my cell phone for
three days and would you believe I found it
laying on the counter in plain sight?,”
Sabin says. “There it was and I thought why
didn’t I see it before?”
It is that frustration that motivated Sabin
to participate in U-M sponsored research
designed to better diagnose and treat
dementia before it escalates.
“This is an explosive disease,” says Sid
Gilman, M.D., director of the Alzheimer’s
Disease Research Center at University of
Michigan Health System, who conducts
research with Sabin and others in her
community.
“It’s a horrible disease that robs people of
their humanity. They forget their families
and friends.”
Roughly 50 percent of people who reach 85
will become demented, according to studies
conducted by investigators at Rush Medical
Center in Chicago.
By age 100, the number spikes to 60 percent.
Of those who develop dementia, roughly 60
percent will prove to have Alzheimer’s
disease.
It’s predicted that the current number of
patients with Alzheimer’s disease in the
United States is roughly 5 million. By the
year 2050, it will grow to about 30 million,
presenting a significant financial burden to
the healthcare system.
Gilman and other researchers at the Michigan
Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center (MADRC),
have a keen interest in patients like Sabin.
The
center first received grant support from the
National Institutes of Health in 1989 and
has continued to receive funding since.
Researchers at the MADRC have so far studied
80 patients in a project that has been going
on for four years on the diagnosis of
Alzheimer's at the earliest sign of
cognitive dysfunction. Researchers would
ultimately like to evaluate 120.
One of the goals of the research is to
determine the best tool for the early
diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease: PET scans
or clinical evaluations. In addition to
Alzheimer’s disease, there are other
possible diagnoses with early onset
cognitive impairment, including multiple
strokes, frontotemporal dementia,
corticobasal degeneration, and the cognitive
disorder associated with Parkinson’s
disease, which is termed dementia with Lewy
bodies.
“The earliest possible treatment for
Alzheimer’s disease would be to the
patient’s greatest advantage,” Gilman says.
PET, or positron emission tomography, is an
imaging study that allows doctors to
evaluate the use of certain substances by
the brain. Normally, the brain uses glucose
as a fuel. Using PET scans, doctors can
image the amount of glucose used by the
brain to determine whether there’s a
difference in brain use by the frontal lobe,
temporal lobe or the parietal lobe.
PET gives the ability to make predictions as
to those individuals who will go on from
mild impairment of memory to developing
Alzheimer’s disease.
These patients may then qualify to
participate in clinical trials for
medications that treat Alzheimer’s.
Studies with glucose are being supplemented
by PET scans that can image beta-amyloid,
one of the abnormal proteins in the brain in
Alzheimer’s disease.
Sabin, whose mother and grandmother had
dementia, is participating in U-M research
that will help researchers diagnose and
treat the illness earlier in life.
“I have trouble remembering names and the
most frustrating is when they are names of
people I know really well, I just can’t
bring the name to the surface,” Sabin says.
“I felt I needed to do this because with my
family history,” Sabin says. “I felt studies
I was participating in would help other
people so that they won’t have to go through
what I did with my own relatives.”
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