Hello and welcome to living in the Lehigh Valley, where our focus is your health and wellness.

I'm your host, Brittany Sweeney.

Alzheimer's disease strikes fear in all of us, but especially for our older population.

According to the CDC, it's the fifth leading cause of death among adults ages 65 and older.

It's a heartbreaking disease that causes a decline in memory, language and other cognitive abilities.

Scientists have been working on a cure for decades without much success until recently.

Our Grover Silcox has looked into the disease, its symptoms, prevention and treatments, including a promising new drug.

He joins us now.

Grover.

It's great to see you.

Good to be here.

Thanks, Bret.

So, Alzheimer's disease.

Yes, Alzheimer's is a progressive form of dementia which robs the individual of memory and cognitive functions.

Sure.

So how long do people typically live with this and is it always fatal?

Well, typically the decline can go from between three and 11 years.

And unfortunately, yes, it is ultimately fatal.

Okay.

So what about this new treatment?

It's being touted as a breakthrough.

Well, as you had mentioned, medical scientists, neuroscientists have been working for decades on a cure or at least find a way to slow the progress of the disease.

And just recently, they've come up with a treatment that shows real signs of being able to slow the decline in early Alzheimer's patients.

Okay, this sounds like really good news.

Hopefully this offers some hope to the patients and the families of people living with this terrible disease.

I think hope is the operative word.

Actually, as we age, it increases the risk of Alzheimer's.

According to the CDC.

Symptoms can first appear after age 60, although younger adults can get it as well.

So what should we know about this disease?

What are the early symptoms?

How does it progress?

Are there preventative measures?

And what about existing and promising new treatments and medications?

For the answers to these and other questions.

I met with a Lehigh Valley specialist in geriatric medicine.

Part of our evaluation during this visit is to kind of look at the different domains of their cognition.

The best way I will be testing your brain's functioning is by asking you some random questions.

If you don't know the answers of anything.

It's okay.

Alzheimer's disease cripples the brain's ability to function.

It mostly targets those 65 and older, often with subtle memory lapses or mild cognitive impairments, until symptoms become worrisome.

What I want you to do is focus on these three figures, and if you could put it in the triangle, the patients who are normally struggling with that kind of memory are not usually the ones that will say, I think I have a problem.

More so often we do here are family members or neighbors or friends actually picking it up for them and being like, you know, you're more repetitive, you're more forgetful, you're misplacing items more frequently, you've missed your bills or you've double paid your bills.

And these can all be signs of dementia, Alzheimer's, dementia.

Dr. Getty Nilesh Vohra, chief of geriatric medicine at Lehigh Valley Health Network, sees patients at LV End Fleming Memory Center in Allentown.

RI At Fleming Memory focused purely on dementia and dementia associated issues.

A new analysis cited by the NIH suggests that an estimated one in seven Americans age 71 and over suffer from some type of dementia, including Alzheimer's.

So Alzheimer's is a form of dementia.

Some of the other subtypes or other forms are vascular dementia, which is kind of the other most common cause.

Lewy body dementia, Parkinson's disease, associated dementia.

There's a lot of subtypes and the most reason that we are looking into is COVID related.

The family doctor can often diagnose a patient for Alzheimer's disease after performing a physical exam, some lab work and standardized screening, patients with more complex cases might be referred to a neurologist or geriatrician, such as Dr. Vora.

A regular doctor can identify dementia pretty easily based on their clinical trajectory.

Doing a bedside cognitive screening.

Physicians must rule out conditions other than dementia.

They might call for an MRI cat scan or even a PET scan of the patient's brain to help them hone their diagnoses.

The beauty of the specific PET scan is that it can also not only identify Alzheimer's disease, but it kind of gives you some information on other subtypes or other forms of dementia.

Alzheimer's disease has seven primary stages, from normal aging to severe dementia.

What is normal aging, which is what you are still functioning beautifully?

Well, you you may have slowed a little bit.

You might be forgetful.

You might miss a name of someone that you've met years ago.

But life is still good.

You can still do things for yourself.

As Alzheimer's patients enter the dementia stages, they increasingly need more help.

You just need executive functioning help.

You need complex thinking, help it.

For example, I can't make a decision where to invest or I can't figure out my financial assets.

How is your driving?

Because sometimes you forget the directions to the places you're going or you wind up going to the wrong place when it starts to affect your day to day.

I need reminders to take a shower.

I'm not sure what weather appropriate clothes are for myself.

That's moderate dementia and then moderately severe dementia goes into where you actually need assistance.

The family member will tell me I actually have to go into the shower to make sure he's doing it.

And then severe stages is really losing all your basic functions and you really don't speak a whole lot.

Swallowing can get difficult.

The last the very severe stage is when you can't even hold your head up.

You can't sit independently.

There is no cure for Alzheimer's and it's ultimately fatal.

Doctors suggest a hard, healthy diet and lifestyle might help prevent it, But researchers are working on more than 100 experimental drugs to manage or treat it.

In 2021, the FDA approved aducanumab, a monoclonal antibody aimed at slowing the brain's decline from Alzheimer's.

It has also just approved what can be another monoclonal antibody.

The drugs have shown some promise in studies, but also certain adverse reactions.

Some have called these drugs a breakthrough, while others call them a first step.

Dr. Vaux is optimistic that one day scientists will find a cure for this puzzling disease.

We are way better than where we were.

We have made so much progress that there's only more to look forward to.

While science works on a cure, Dr. Vaux and her team at the Fleming Memory Center care for patients and their families.

They help them with the countless hours of caregiving and the challenges they face each day.

We actually have something called our Memory Support Group, our social work, our nursing liaison, our geriatric care manager.

They all sit down together with families.

What is your family's concerns?

What are your family's hurdles?

What are your family's issues?

And we guide their way.

Based on studies cited by the CDC in 2020, as many as 5.8 million Americans were living with Alzheimer's disease.

That number is projected to triple to 14 million by 2060.

We often use the word heartbreaking to describe the difficult decline Alzheimer's patients endure.

It's heartbreaking for them, but also for their families, who are often the primary caregivers.

Obviously, those most affected by this disease look to medical science for a cure, or at least a way to slow the progression grow over.

Hopefully, this newly developed treatment will help improve signs and symptoms and even maybe even lead to a cure sooner rather than later.

Hopefully, at least it may be the first step in that direction.

Meanwhile, Alzheimer's patients and their families typically need a lot of support and fortunately there are a number of resources they can use, such as the Alzheimer's Association, the Alzheimer's Foundation and the National Institute on Aging.

Sure, this can be really intense for the patients and their caregivers, so it's good to know that there is support out there for them.

That's right.

Some great information.

Grover, as always, thank you so much for joining us.

And that'll do it for this edition of Living in the Lehigh Valley.

I'm Brittany Sweeney, hoping you stay happy and healthy.