Auntsimers has proved stubbornly hard to treat. All clinical trials so far have failed to show convincing benefit. There are no good treatments to prevent or to reverse symptoms. What begins as forgetting where you put your keys progresses to confusion and wandering off, not knowing who your wife or your children are any more. That cognitive decline is the result of a cascade of pathological brain changes that can begin up to 25 years earlier.
Marty Reiswig is fit and healthy, but every two weeks he is injected with the experimental drug gantenerumab and has monthly MRI scans. He submits to this because a rare genetic mutation runs in his family that predisposes them to early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.
We spoke to him about his experience on the trial, and why he chose to continue trialling the drug even after formal clinical trials were discontinued.
Produced and narrated by Lorna Stewart.
More on this story:
News Feature: Could drugs prevent Alzheimer’s? These trials aim to find out
Resources for those affected by Alzheimer's:
Alzheimer's association
Alzheimers.gov
Alzheimer's society
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