Related video: The Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute – MSN
Dementia is the umbrella under which Alzheimer’s and other debilitating cognitive diseases can be found. The symptoms include loss of short-term memory, difficulties.
with speaking, problem-solving and other thinking abilities.
The Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute (WTMJ Milwaukee, WI)
About the film:
DETERMINED features a personal look into Alzheimer’s disease research.
The independent documentary follows three WRAP volunteer participants as they take part in research to help understand Alzheimer’s disease, illustrates the difficulties families face after a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease, and highlights the work of WRAP research. The film features interviews with scientists from UW Alzheimer’s disease research programs. The film follows the journeys of three human research subjects who have
put themselves throughout the rigor of a medical study.
The test group also shares one of life’s most difficult trials – a parent’s decline from Alzheimer’s disease. As the researchers compile data from 1,500 participants over the period of the study, a narrative begins to emerge. One of the film producer’s, Therese Barry-Tanner, has been a participant in the WRAP study for more than fifteen years. Barry-Tanner served as a caregiver to her mother as she battled Alzheimer’s disease.
The documentary began as Therese’s idea in 2011, and she said she hopes DETERMINED will bring the audience through the difficult decisions faced when a loved one lives with or dies from Alzheimer’s disease. She also hopes the film will share the experience of being a research volunteer participant, and offer an inside look at the people who are working to find a cure.
After losing their mothers to Alzheimer’s disease, three Wisconsin women — determined to find a cure — volunteer their bodies and minds to a groundbreaking study taking place right here at UW Madison. Hailing from Milwaukee, Madison, and Spooner Wisconsin, respectively, Karen, Sigrid, and Barb face strenuous cognitive exams, exercise tests, and neural scans as part of the Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention (WRAP).
This clear-eyed documentary secures access not only to the high-stakes inner workings
of medical research, but also to the intimate personal lives of the participants and their families.
Determined examines, in heartbreaking detail, the toll of Alzheimer’s, particularly on the inner lives of caregivers. It also introduces us to three brave women and a team of doctors who, together, give us hope for a brighter future.
On this podcast, 29. Determined by Cinematalk (soundcloud.com)
We welcome a lively panel of five women who together have spent the past seven years, determined to tell the story of Determined. Producers Therese Barry-Tanner, and Eileen Littig, Director Melissa Godoy, Sound person Shawndra Jones, and one of the stars of the film, Karen McElwee all sat down to talk with Ben Reiser via Zoom for an engaging and informative discussion about the making of this remarkable film.
DETERMINED is about the quest for a cure to Alzheimer’s disease.
As told by human research subjects in a long-term medical research study.
The documentary intimately shows what happens when human test subjects –
who are at high risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease – offer their blood,
brains, and hearts to conquer it.
Currently, one in nine older adults has Alzheimer’s disease.
But the population is aging rapidly, by 2025 the number of Americans aged 65 and
older with Alzheimer’s disease is expected to increase by 40 percent – to 7.1 million.
Alzheimer’s disease is not normal aging, but rather a fatal disease with no known cure.
Since 2001, medical research scientists at the Wisconsin Alzheimer’s Institute at the University of Wisconsin have been on a mission to figure out how to prevent, and eventually cure, Alzheimer’s disease. The Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer’s Prevention (WRAP) tracks the characteristics and habits of people at high risk for the disease and observes them in biological detail as they age. Some go on to develop Alzheimer’s disease and some do not.
Two breakthroughs on dementia —
one that’s useful right now
Opinion by Brett Arends
Six million among us have full-blown Alzheimer’s disease, including 10% of those over 65
and half of everyone over 80. And many more have other types of dementia, or cognitive impairment typically associated with age. Actor Bruce Willis, a mere 68 years young,
is the latest heartbreaking example in the public eye.
So, when it comes to dementia and the aging brain, any news is good news.
And last week we had not one but two hopeful news items. One that’s useful to us right now, and the other that suggests something potentially very big down the road.
Let’s start with the one useful here and now. Some fascinating new research out of the University of California Riverside suggests we really can make our aging brain younger again, and lower the number of those senior moments, at later ages than previously realized.
Remember how quick your brain was when you were young? Like most people,
I’ve just assumed that was because my brain was neurologically new back then and presumably more agile. And there’s something to that.
But some scientists have been theorizing that it’s also because of the school environment. Back then we are stuck in a classroom all day every day, concurrently learning multiple different skills from composition to trigonometry. We have teachers, and we are in a social environment with other children learning the same stuff at the same time.
Some scientists have wondered if we could make our minds more agile again,
even at more advanced ages, if we tried to replicate some of that environment.
So that’s what the researchers did at UC Riverside. And it worked.
In two separate studies, seniors spent 7 hours a week learning three different skills over
3 to 3 ½ months. The participants had average ages of 66 in the first study and 69 in the second. The skills included Spanish language, photography, drawing, music composition, and operating an iPad.
They spent two hours per week on each, along with a one-hour discussion each week on one of the subjects. Critically, for each participant these were new skills. Nobody was relearning something they already knew.
Overall, the time and commitment for those 12 or 15 weeks “was similar to a full undergraduate course load,” the researchers report. “Our intervention included novel
skill learning, motivational lectures, and peer social support, as we originally intended to closely mimic rich, encouraging learning environments provided to children, adolescents and young adults.”
Here’s the payoff: Participants in the study showed dramatic improvements—and not simply in the three new skills they’d learned. They also showed “significant increases”
in mental skills across a battery of tests designed to measure the broad set of cognitive abilities, the researchers report.
That includes tests of both thinking skills and memory.
And these improvements weren’t just temporary. While participants in the studies showed cognitive gains during the program and at the end of it, they also showed further gains for up to a full year afterward.
“Older adults continued to increase their cognitive abilities even after one year from the end of the intervention,” the researchers report. “The present study revealed significant improvements up to a year following the end of the learning intervention.” The findings indicate “that a multi-skill learning intervention has the potential to induce long-lasting cognitive improvements in older adults.”
Wow.
One caveat is that the two studies were small: six people in one, 27 in another. Another is that the groups of participants were not ethnically diverse. We’ll have to see if other, broader studies replicate the findings.
But the studies suggest that signing up for programs at your local adult education center won’t just teach you Spanish, or oil painting, or Thai cooking and get you out of the house. They also rejuvenate your brain long term.
Meanwhile, there was some other hopeful news on dementia.
Scientists have long known that people who end up developing Alzheimer’s or other forms of dementia are more likely to experience sleep problems in the years before the disease becomes apparent.
The connection isn’t fully known:
Does the disrupted sleep cause the brain decay, or vice versa?
But researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
have made a small, but potentially huge, discovery.
A sleeping pill already available could help.
A small number of patients who took the pill Suvorexant, which is made by Merck and marketed under the brand name Belsomra, saw sharp and immediate reductions in the two key biological markers of Alzheimer’s.
Those markers are the “amyloid-beta” and “tau” proteins that show up in the brains of people with dementia. The research involved 38 people aged 45 to 65.
Some were given a higher, 20 milligram doses of the sleep aid before going to sleep.
Others were given 10 milligrams. Others were given a placebo.
The researchers then took a spinal tap every two hours to analyze their cerebrospinal fluid.
“In the cerebrospinal fluid of people who had received the high dose of suvorexant, amyloid levels dropped 10% to 20% and levels of a key form of tau known as hyperphosphorylated tau dropped 10% to 15%, compared with people who had received placebo,” the researchers report. They repeated the test over a second night, with the same result.
What does it mean? Maybe nothing. Maybe an enormous amount.
“This is a small, proof-of-concept study,” warned the study’s senior author, Brendan Lucey, a Washington University neurology professor and the director of the sleep medicine center, in a statement. “It would be premature for people who are worried about developing Alzheimer’s to interpret it as a reason to start taking suvorexant every night.”
That said, he said these results were “very encouraging. This drug is already available and proven safe, and now we have evidence that it affects the levels of proteins that are critical for driving Alzheimer’s disease.”
There are many potential breakthroughs on Alzheimer’s, and so far none of them has panned out. There is currently no cure and very little we can do to slow the disease, let alone stop it. A new drug which can slow the progression early on is expensive, and currently isn’t covered by Medicare.
FDA Approves Insomnia Drug, Suvorexant, for Alzheimer’s Patients
By Lecia Bushak | February 5th, 2020
Whether it’s sleeping too much or experiencing fragmented sleep, people with Alzheimer’s or other types of dementia may often experience disruptions in their circadian rhythms. Now, a new insomnia drug is available for Alzheimer’s patients to help smooth out sleep difficulties.
The Food & Drug Administration (FDA) approved Belsomra, an insomnia drug developed by Merck, for use among Alzheimer’s patients, the company announced this week. Belsomra is also known by its generic name, suvorexant.
In a study published this month in Alzheimers & Dementia, researchers investigated suvorexant’s potential in treating insomnia among patients who had mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease. The study focused on 285 participants and found that suvorexant improved their total sleep time, or TST.
Given the latest findings,
the FDA approved an updated label on Belsomra to include treatment for Alzheimer’s-related insomnia.
“Alzheimer’s disease is often accompanied by disruptions to an individual’s sleep-wake patterns and overall difficulty sleeping,” Dr. Joseph Herring, associate vice president of Global Clinical Research, Neuroscience at Merck Research Laboratories, said in the company’s news release.
“We’re pleased that the prescribing information for BELSOMRA now includes findings from Merck’s first dedicated study of an insomnia medication in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease,” Herring continued.
Sleep and dementia have long intertwined. Whether it’s chronic sleep deprivation contributing to an increased risk of Alzheimer’s, or facing sleep problems once
a person is already diagnosed, researchers have examined the two in tandem.
It’s well-established that sleep deprivation can not only lead to a higher risk of chronic diseases like heart disease or obesity–but it can also take a heavy toll on the brain. One recent study measured the effect of losing even just one night of sleep on the brain, and found pulling an all-nighter was enough to trigger the increase of a biomarker associated with Alzheimer’s in people’s blood.
Other researchers have cited that poor sleep and limited deep sleep is associated with
a 40 percent decline in memory performance. In a past interview with Being Patient, sleep scientist Dr. Daniel Gartenberg discussed how crucial deep sleep is in clearing the brain of harmful elements.
“Sleep cleans out a lot of the bad plaques that build up during the day,” Gartenberg said. “Also, there are things [sleep affects] that you might not even think about. For example, you’re more sensitive to pain when you’re sleep deprived.”
“Deep sleep is thought to be the more regenerative aspect of sleep that’s associated
with human growth hormones and memory abilities,” he added. And once someone is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, sleep issues may exacerbate behavioral, emotional and cognitive issues already at play.
It makes sense, then, that patients and caregivers would turn to sleep aids and insomnia medications to help lighten the load. However, it’s important to discuss with your doctor first, as an increase in certain types of medications–including antidepressants, antipsychotics or insomnia drugs–could have varying effects on patients.
Alzheimer’s insomnia Sleep
In Small Study, Hints That a Sleeping Pill Might Help Prevent Alzheimer’s
HealthDay | April 21, 2023, at 6:45 a.m.
By Cara Murez HealthDay Reporter
FRIDAY, April 21, 2023 (HealthDay News) –
(HEALTHDAY)
Taking a particular sleep medication may help stave off Alzheimer’s disease, but it’s too soon to say for sure after a preliminary study. Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis found that participants who took a sleeping pill called suvorexant before bed had a drop in levels of key Alzheimer’s disease proteins.
“This is a small, proof-of-concept study. It would be premature for people who are worried about developing Alzheimer’s to interpret it as a reason to start taking suvorexant every night,” said senior study author Dr. Brendan Lucey, an associate professor of neurology and director of Washington University’s Sleep Medicine Center.
“We don’t yet know whether long-term use is effective in staving off cognitive
decline, and if it is, at what dose and for whom,” he added in a university news release.
“Still, these results are very encouraging. This drug is already available and proven safe,
and now we have evidence that it affects the levels of proteins that are critical for
driving Alzheimer’s disease.”
Suvorexant (Belsomra), a dual orexin receptor antagonist, is one of three in this class of drugs that are already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for insomnia. Orexin is a natural biomolecule that promotes wakefulness.
When it is blocked, people fall asleep, according to the study.
In Alzheimer’s disease, plaques of the protein amyloid beta build up in the brain.
Years after amyloid begins accumulating, another brain protein called tau, starts
forming tangles that are toxic to neurons. As those tangles become detectable,
people with Alzheimer’s disease start experiencing memory loss.
In past research, Lucey and his colleagues have linked poor sleep to higher levels of both amyloid and tau in the brain. What they don’t know is whether good sleep would reduce those levels, and with that halt or reverse progress of Alzheimer’s disease. Mouse studies with orexin inhibitors have been promising.
For this study, researchers recruited 38 people between the ages of 45 and 65 who had no mental impairments. Researchers gave 13 of them a lower dose — 10 milligrams (mg) — of suvorexant. Twelve others received a 20 mg dose, while 13 participants received a placebo.
The doses were each given at 9 p.m.
Researchers withdrew a small amount of cerebrospinal fluid from participants via spinal tap every two hours for 36 hours. This began an hour before the sleeping aid or placebo was administered. The purpose was to measure how amyloid and tau levels changed over the next day and a half.
Amyloid levels dropped 10% to 20% in the cerebrospinal fluid of people who had received the high dose of suvorexant compared to those who received a placebo. Levels of a key form of tau known as hyperphosphorylated tau dropped 10% to 15%, researchers found.
These differences are considered statistically significant.
No significant difference was found between the people who received a low dose of suvorexant and those who received the placebo. Investigators administered another dose of suvorexant on the second night. Levels of both proteins again dropped in the high-dose group.
“If we can lower amyloid every day, we think the accumulation of amyloid plaques
in the brain will decrease over time,” Lucey said. “And hyperphosphorylated tau is very important in the development of Alzheimer’s disease, because it’s associated with forming tau tangles that kill neurons. If you can reduce tau phosphorylation, potentially there would be less tangle formation and less neuronal death.”
The findings were published April 20 in Annals of Neurology.
Lucey cautioned that the study is preliminary. Ongoing studies aim to assess the longer-term effects of orexin inhibitors in people who are at higher risk of dementia.
“Future studies need to have people taking these drugs for months, at least, and measuring the effect on amyloid and tau over time,” Lucey said. “We’re also going to be studying participants who are older and may still be cognitively healthy, but who already have some amyloid plaques in their brains.”
He noted that this study involved healthy middle-aged participants.
Results may be different in older participants. “I’m hopeful that we will eventually
develop drugs that take advantage of the link between sleep and Alzheimer’s to prevent
cognitive decline,” Lacey said. “We’re not quite there yet.
At this point, the best advice I can give is to get a good night’s sleep if you can, and if you can’t, to see a sleep specialist and get your sleep problems treated.” But if it turns out that the right sleep aids can make a difference—that would be huge. Stay tuned. In Alzheimer’s study, sleeping pills are shown to reduce signs of disease in the brain (msn.com)
More information
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on Alzheimer’s disease.
SOURCE: Washington University, news release, April 19, 2023
Copyright © 2023 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
Scientists Discover Way To Reverse Alzheimer’s
Scientists at MIT have made a breakthrough in the fight to reverse the effects of Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers were successfully able to interfere with an enzyme typically found to be overactive in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients.
The hyperactive enzyme, CDK5, was treated with an unnamed peptide.
Early tests conducted on mice have had promising results.
“This peptide has the ability to enter the brain, and in a couple of different models, the peptide shows protective effects against loss of neurons and also appear to be able to rescue some of the behavior deficits,” said Study Author Li-Huei Tsai, Director of MIT’s Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. The hope is that with further testing, this particular peptide might be a treatment for dementia in humans. Further research into such peptide inhibitors could lead to treatments for other neurodegenerative illnesses.
For scientist Michal Schwartz, Israel Prize is rewarding milestone in ongoing journey.
Fighting Alzheimer’s With Diet – YouTube