That sounds pretty expensive for me for a test with that low accuracy, especially when there's not much you can do different if it comes back high vs. coming back low.
> Early detection of Alzheimer’s disease is important since the first treatments capable of slowing the progression of the neurodegenerative disease recently became available to patients, and these drugs are more effective when started sooner rather than later. Other promising investigational drugs are in the pipeline.
A very good friend's wife had Alzheimer's caught early, and the medication she's on stopped its progression. It's much better for her than my family members who had no treatment options.
It’s also not clear that one can measure progression well enough that an n=1 data point is meaningful. And I’m also far from convinced that very early Alzheimer’s that would progress rapidly enough to be noticeable can be detected with enough specificity to rule out fairly common cases of people who test positive but effectively don’t have the disease.
Best wishes to your friend’s wife.
He has taken a personal interest in preventing dementia and wants to take the first generation Alzheimer’s drugs, specifically leqembi that works on amyloid plaques. And this is definitely a tough choice, because eventhough it does show some slowing of the disease, it has lot of side effects that may not be worth it.
Personally, I am against it and don’t think it’s worth it as he could do permanent damage to himself. Think he should hang on until the second generation of drugs come out, which should be in the next 1-3 years (there a lot of Alz drugs in the pipeline, but you never know of course if anything will pan out). It’s a tough choice and don’t know if there is a good option at this point.
And, would be very surprised if none of the drugs in clinical trials panned out in the next five or six year. It seems like they’re on the verge of making a major breakthrough. Here’s hoping:)
We shall see if yet another generation of amyloid-targeted treatment does any better. The amyloid-hypothesis boosters seem to think so - we had a thread about this not that long ago. But I remain skeptical.
Google scholar link for the article https://scholar.google.com/scholar?cluster=10296105574478709...
What a time to be alive
what medication is that?
But hopefully we'll start to have more options and wider approvals for things like anti-amyloid drugs.
Isn’t the viewpoint in the last decade that amyloid plaques are likely a finding rather than the underlying cause of Alzheimer’s Disease?
This is called working! I am struck by the double-standard applied to assessing treatment options for Alzheimer's vs cancers. Many (most?) Stage IV cancers are incurable, and the main goal of treatment is to slow progression of the disease. Adding years to patients' lives is absolutely worth it, assuming the side effects are not overwhelming and the costs are not prohibitive.
To wit: Moderna added ~30B to its market cap on the news that it observed _statistically significant_ improvement in its primary endpoint for treating metastatic melanoma. Great! I'm as excited about this development as anyone. A new treatment option for a terrible disease that meaningfully improves on the current standard of care (Keytruda). Sadly, Stage IV melanoma is still considered terminal, and no one suggested that Moderna changed that.
Why not reset expectations for Alzheimer's? If we manage to slow its development enough so that most patients (who tend to be elderly) would die of other causes while maintaining decent quality of life, that's a win in my book.
Those in it are still throwing billions per year at the idea.
Meanwhile, back in reality, no amyloid-beta drug has had any clinical effect in humans, other than reducing the plaques. But both the shingles and RSV vaccines are proven to reduce Alzheimer's risk.
I can't think of a good reason why this happened.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2021/06/11/1005567149/3-experts-have-res...
It's (almost) purely determined by genetics. You can't do anything to improve it, other than to improve every other cardiac related risk factor.
(There are some experimental drugs in the pipeline, though)
If you do go into long-term care, Medicaid will probably seize your assets to help pay for everything. For example, a house in your name. They'll use those to pay back what they paid for your care.
So if you're gonna get sick and you're gonna be a burden in your old age, best to plan for leaving this world the way you came in: naked and penniless.
The only other alternative is some sort of mental hospital which is more like a prison than anything else.