Families, science take on Alzheimer's

Connie Midey
The Arizona Republic
Oct. 25, 2007 12:00 AM

In the 1980s, when Maria Reed began showing signs of Alzheimer's disease, there was little to help her medically.

But her husband, Phoenix physician and Surgicenter co-founder Wallace Reed, found other ways - music therapy and daily walks among them - to hold the disease at bay and enrich her remaining years.

"He was her primary caregiver," says Vikki Reed, the youngest of their six children, "and he gathered a team around him to help, people who could communicate with her non-verbally and see her abilities as well as her disabilities." advertisement




Although a cure still has not been found, medical options look more promising today, says psychiatrist Eric Reiman, executive director of the Banner Alzheimer's Institute and director of the Arizona Alzheimer's Consortium.

The non-profit Banner Alzheimer's Institute in Phoenix, one of seven institutions in the consortium, conducts research and provides services for people with memory and thinking problems and for their families and caregivers.

"There is extraordinary excitement right now about the possibilities," Reiman says, "and extraordinary urgency to find those treatments as soon as possible."

More than 5 million Americans have the progressive and fatal brain disorder, a number expected to reach 7.7 million by 2030, says the Alzheimer's Association, which will benefit from a Memory Walk on Saturday at two Valley locations.

Those figures drive Reiman and his consortium colleagues - about 120 in all - in their search for solutions.

Inspired by "generosity of spirit and scientific desperation," they're making breakthroughs such as identifying genes that may be involved in Alzheimer's, Reiman says, and developing brain-imaging techniques to detect the disease years before its onset and track its progression in those who already have it.

Today there are a number of ways to target amyloid plaques, the microscopic brain abnormalities found in Alzheimer's patients, Reiman says, and there is progress in medication and vaccine therapies.

"If these treatments turn out to be safe and well tolerated," he says, "and if one intervenes early enough and targets the right form of amyloid, we may have a dramatically effective treatment sooner rather than later."

That time could come within 12 years, he says, but people needn't feel powerless in the meantime.

Studies suggest that lifestyle measures that protect the heart also may protect the brain, delaying, if not preventing, Alzheimer's disease, Reiman says. Those measures include staying physically active, lowering cholesterol and blood pressure, eating healthfully and using one's mind.

"Mental exercise may either decrease development of some of the microscopic abnormalities in the brain," he says, "or it may promote cognitive reserve, making you better able to compensate so you don't see (the disease) until a little bit later. My guess is it's a combination of the two."
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