Clinical Trial Finder Team
Keywords: Alzheimer’s Symptoms, Clinical Trials for Alzheimer’s
Quick Links:
- What is Alzheimer’s Disease?
- Symptoms of Alzheimer’s
- Causes of Alzheimer’s
- Treatments for Alzheimer’s
- Prevention of Alzheimer’s
- MedBuzz Recent Clinical Trial Findings
What is Alzheimer’s Disease?
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive and irreversible brain condition that overtime destroys memory and thinking skills, changing the way a person thinks and functions. It is the most common form of dementia, affection over 80% of dementia sufferers. It is typically characterised by a gradual increase in difficulty thinking, learning, recalling memory and performing judgments.
The disease itself is a buildup of amyloid plaque in the brain, blocking and attacking neurotransmitters that send messages around your brain, such as recalling a memory, skill or function. There are a number of suspected causes of Alzheimer’s with more studies taking place every year exposing more about this neurological condition.
Alzheimer’s can develop in two stages of life:
- Late-onset Alzheimer’s: symptoms appear beyond 60-65 years of age
- Early-onset Alzheimer’s: symptoms appear between 30-60 years of age
Explore other MedBuzz articles: Diabetes – Symptoms, Causes, Treatment and Recent Clinical Trial Findings
Symptoms of Alzheimer’s
Symptoms of Alzheimer’s is typically come on slowly, with most relating to memory or cognitive functions. Symptoms also vary case by case, with some developing faster, slower or not at all. Additionally, there may be days where some symptoms are worse or better than others.
Other symptoms include, but aren’t limited to:
- Frequent memory recall issues e.g. recent events, places, people, locations
- Vagueness in conversation
- Skill recall issues, or increased time doing routine tasks e.g. driving, cooking, paying bills
- Difficulty processing instructions or questions
- Increased worry, anger or violence
- Repetition of statements or questions
- Impaired judgment or reasoning
- Vision or spacial awareness issues
- Deterioration of social skills
- Lack of interested in previously enjoyed activities
Causes of Alzheimer’s
Alzheimer’s disease was named after Dr. Alois Alzheimer after he discovered changes in the brain tissue of a mental illness patient. He found the patient had an unnatural build-up of protein deposits called beta-amyloid plaques, as well as tangled nerve cells (neurofibrillary tangles). To this day, a build-up of plaque and neurofibrillary tangles are considered the main features of Alzheimer’s disease. The disease usually damages the hippocampus first, where the brain stores and retrieves memories.
Since the discovery of this disease, and increasingly today, researchers are trying to understand what causes the build-up of plaque and the neurofibrillary tangles to occur. There are a number of initial and promising theories such as:
- Genetic predisposition, increasing by not ensuring your chance of getting Alzheimer’s
- Vascular conditions
- high blood pressure
- Stroke
- heart disease
- high blood pressure
- Metabolic issues
- insulin resistance
- diabetes
- Other poor health lifestyle factors i.e. drinking, smoking, drug consumption
Treatments for Alzheimer’s
Most of the currently active Alzheimer’s treatment is focused on slowing down symptoms. Researchers are yet to discover how to slow the process of plaque build-up and neurofibrillary tangles, but treatment can maintain current function or support the brain in other ways to help function.
Treatment can help Alzheimer’s patients maintain certain levels of function for longer periods of time i.e. taking themselves to the bathroom, feeding themselves, relieving pressure on the patient as well as the caregiver. For more advanced cases, it can add months to coherency in patients. Though none of these are cures and eventually, the brain will move past a stage of no return.
Treatments for Memory Loss
Some of the current medications used to treat memory symptoms in Alzheimer’s include:
- Aricept (Donepezil): A cholinesterase inhibitor to treat the symptoms of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s. This drug prevents the breakdown of acetylcholine in the brain, a chemical that is important for memory and thinking. Side effects may occur.
- Exelon (Rivastigmine): Another cholinesterase inhibitor for mild to moderate Alzheimer’s that prevents the breakdown of butyrylcholine (similar to acetylcholine) as well as acetylcholine. Side effects may occur.
- Namenda (memantine): This drug is prescribed for severe cases of Alzheimer’s. Its main purpose in treating symptoms is to regulate and block the effects of a build-up of glutamate, an important brain chemical. Side effects may occur.
- Namzaric (memantine and donepezil): Combining the effects of Namenda and Aricept in moderate to severe Alzheimer’s patients. Side effects may occur.
- Razadyne (galantamine): Another cholinesterase inhibitor prescribed to treat the symptoms of mild to moderate Alzheimer’s, which prevents the breakdown of acetylcholine and stimulates nicotinic receptors to encourage the release of acetylcholine in the brain.
Treatments for Behavior
As Alzheimer’s patients can often exhibit behavioral changes such as anger, anxiety, depression, there are several coping tips and treatments for making both the Alzheimer’s patient and their caregivers’ lives easier.
Coping Tips
- Monitor comfort: Make sure you’re taking note of possible contributors to behavior changes, checking for pain, hunger, thirst, constipation, infections or skin irritation. Keep note of any sudden changes to provide your doctor with more information.
- Avoid confrontation: Try redirecting unattainable questions or requests rather than pointing out the person is wrong. Acknowledge requests, respond to them and avoid getting emotional
- Maintain a comfortable environment: Try to keep the person in well ventilated, quiet, and non-distracting areas or environments. Maintain a comfortable room temperature.
Medication
- Antidepressants: such as Prozac, Zoloft, Celexa can help with people experience low moods are irritability
- Anxiolytics: such as Ativan and Serax can help in situations where people begin showing verbally disruptive, anxious or resistant behavior
- Antipsychotic medications: such as Abilify, Clozaril and Haldol might help when people begin having hallucinations, delusions or show aggression and uncooperativeness.
Medicating Alzheimer’s patients due to behavioral changes should be well discussed with their doctor and should be as a last resort if used at all.
Alternative treatments
Though none of the following have been approved by the FDA, there have been reports of people seeing some results by supplementing the diets of Alzheimer’s patients with the following:
- Caprylic acid and coconut oil: Caprylic acid is a medium-chain triglyceride (fat) found in coconut oil or palm oil. When the body breads down MCT, it turns it into a substance called “ketones”, an alternative energy source for the body compared to glucose. The brain of Alzheimer’s patients are often unable to use glucose as an energy source, so the provision of ‘ketones’ provide an alternative and in some cases more useful energy. Some people have reported this has helped people with Alzheimer’s but no little clinical testing has been done to support these claims.
- Omega-3 fatty acid: Commonly found in fish oils, omega-3s are a type of polyunsaturated fatty acid. They have a number of benefits that support theories of its effect on reducing the risk of developing dementia, including anti-inflammatory effects, protection of nerve cell membranes and benefits to heart and blood vessels. They have been approved by the FDA to permit “a qualified health claim” for two types of omega-3s, DHA and EPA, for the possible reduced risk in heart disease and stroke. Research has also linked high omega-3 diets with a possible reduction in the risk of developing dementia, though more research is needed to confirm their effect.
- Phosphatidylserine: Phosphatidylserine is a fat, or lipid, that is the primary component of the membrane that surrounds nerve cells in the brain. The idea behind using this lipid as protection against dementia is that it would strengthen the current membranes of nerve cells in the brain. The FDA permitted supplements of the highest quality soy-derivative phosphatidylserine to display “a qualified health claim” with the warning “Very limited and preliminary scientific research suggests that phosphatidylserine may reduce the risk of dementia in the elderly. FDA concludes that there is little scientific evidence supporting this claim.”
Prevention of Alzheimer’s
Though there is no current treatment to prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s in later years, researchers suggest that you can do a number of things to keep your brain healthy and active. These include:
- Keep a physically active life – at least 30 minutes of exercise per day
- Maintain a nutritious diet, limiting the amount of sugar, simple carbohydrates and other insulin spiking drinks or food
- Engage in mentally stimulating activities and social engagement
- Ensure you’re getting between 7-9 hours sleep per night
- Stop or reduce unhealthy lifestyle habits i.e. smoking, excessive drinking, drug consumption
MedBuzz Clinical Trial Findings:
We do the research so you can be better informed!
Many say that Alzheimer’s is becoming a pandemic in its growth rates across the world. Between 2000 and 2014, deaths associated with Alzheimer’s in America increased by 89% whilst death rates of stroke and heart disease dropped. Increasingly, researchers are trying to find a cause for the degeneration of the brain in older people, and understanding why more and more people are developing early-onset Alzheimer’s.
For the past few decades, research and clinical trials have been focused on the amyloid plaque: removing it, or trying to stop it from growing or spreading. Currently, there has been no clinical trial that has successfully shown results to move through to the required phases of a trial, but some show promising initial results within the first few phases.
- BAN2401: In a clinical trial in 2018 of 856 Alzheimer’s patients, researchers found that BAN2401 was successful in binding to a protein that can cause plaque in the brain, promoting the clearance of the plaque build-up. After 18 months of the treatment, some patients showed a reduction in plaque, as well as a slower cognitive decline. More research and movement to the next phases of trials will give more definitive results.
- High-intensity activity: Some studies are looking at the impact of intense physical activity on mental function. Studies have shown that the body releases a certain molecule whilst exercising, endocannabinoids, that travels through the bloodstream to the brain, causing both a euphoric feeling as well as heightened reaction times in the brain. More research needs to go into ti’s effectiveness in preventing neurological disorders.
- Vitamin B1: In persons with alcohol-related dementia, there is often a build-up of iron in the brain. A study found that high alcohol consumption levels resulted in higher iron as well as lower vitamin B1, which supports a healthy blood-brain barrier. When the two coincide, there will be more iron build-up in the brain leading to oxidative tissue damage. In conclusion, supplementing the diets of these patients with Vitamin B1 could delay or prevent this from happening.
- Ketogenic diet: A study has found a link between gut bacteria, Alzheimer’s disease markers and a Mediterranean ketogenic diet in subjects with mild cognitive impairment. Researchers found that “a modified Mediterranean ketogenic diet improves Alzheimer’s disease markers in cerebrospinal fluid and the signatures of gut bacteria”.
Sources:
Nia.nih.gov
Dementia.org
Healthline.com
HealthDirect.gov
Alzheimerswa.org.au
WebMd.com
NewScientist.com
ScienceDirect.com
ALZ.org
