Yesterday, 1/31/24, Biogen announced that it will stop selling Aduhelm, its Alzheimer’s disease (AD) medication, by the end of this year.  When initial approval was given by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to market this medication in 2021, FDA required Biogen to conduct additional studies to prove the efficacy of this new drug.  Biogen announced yesterday that it is ending its study needed to obtain full approval from the FDA.  Readers may remember reading my Personal Blog #23, posted on this site on 6/11/21 … “Letter to Acting FDA Commissioner re Aduhelm.”  In the ..read more

I didn’t know much about Alzheimer’s back in 2007, but that was the year when I started searching the Internet for reasons to explain why, in my opinion, my wife was exhibiting worrisome behaviors.  Nobody else seemed to be noticing those behaviors, but I was seeing them more and more.  I continued worrying, I continued educating myself, and by early 2008 I was convinced that my wife was already dealing either with Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) or the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease (AD).  Although my wife saw no reason to do so, I was able to convince her to see a neurolo ..read more

  Personal Blog # 33 … Concerns About AD?  Be Sure to See the Right Doctor! A friend of mine recently told me about the problems she went through trying to obtain an accurate diagnosis for the causes of increasingly worsening gastrointestinal issues her daughter was facing.  Despite being seen and treated by her primary care doctor, an internist, a gastroenterologist, and numerous MDs in hospital ERs, her issues continued to worsen.  Why?  It turned out that for many years she was repeatedly misdiagnosed and given medications that were not helpful.  Conditions suc ..read more

  The U.S. Food and Drug administration (FDA) gave full approval today for Japanese drugmaker Eisai, and its American partner, Biogen, to market its latest medication, lecanemab (to be known as Leqembi) for those with mild Alzheimer’s disease (AD).  According to Teresa Buracchio, acting director of the Office of Neuroscience in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, “Today's action is the first verification that a drug targeting the underlying disease process of Alzheimer's disease has shown clinical benefit in this devastating disease."  Six months ago the FDA gave ..read more

 According to an article in The Washington Post on 9/27/22, “An experimental Alzheimer’s drug (Lecanemab) slowed cognitive and functional decline by 27 percent in a closely watched clinical trial.  Japanese drugmaker Eisai and its American partner, Biogen, said the slowing of deterioration, compared with a placebo, was “highly statistically significant.” The Phase 3 clinical trial, called Clarity AD, had1795 participants with mild cognitive impairment caused by Alzheimer’s or early-stage Alzheimer’s and “demonstrated that lecanemab reduces abnormal clumps of beta amyloid, a hallmark ..read more

  JUNE 2022 PRACTICAL NEUROLOGY 45  Alzheimer Disease Support Groups A care partner plea for physicians to inform patients and care partners about Alzheimer disease support groups. By Allan S. Vann          I am a retired public school principal. I started observing my late wife’s symptoms of what would eventually be diagnosed as early or young-onset Alzheimer disease (AD) 15 years ago. There were many frustrations, especially about misdiagnoses for several years. As my wife was treated first for stress, then anxiety, and then depression, I continued seeing h ..read more

  With a new football season underway, NFL broadcasters and advertisers are expected to reach a very wide TV audience. Of the 50 most watched TV broadcasts last year, 33 were NFL games. In October, as it has done each year since 2009, the NFL is promoting cancer awareness with its "Crucial Catch" campaign during its broadcasts. Players in past seasons wore special uniforms to show support for those diagnosed with cancer and to stimulate greater disease awareness. In the past 12 years, the NFL has raised more than $18.5 million for the American Cancer Society, and I applaud the NFL fo ..read more

This Personal Blog (PB) is very different from previous PBs I have posted on this site.  I have already written PBs about GEAR 2.0, the NIH/NIA grant program seeking to improve hospital emergency room treatment for people with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and other forms of dementia.  One of my fellow task force members is Michael Ellenbogen, a person living with dementia (PLWD).  When Michael was 49, he was diagnosed with early-stage AD … but that was only after Michael spent 10 years trying to receive a diagnosis for what was happening to him.  Doctors now believe he may have ..read more

The GEAR project … Geriatric Emergency care Applied Research … is winding down its year of having task force domain groups focus on four major areas affecting people with dementia or cognitive impairment in hospital Emergency Departments (EDs).  Groups focused on the best way to detect cognitive impairment/dementia in patients in the ED, the best practices to treat such patients, best ways to communicate with such patients and how to involve care partners in shared decision making, and best ways to facilitate transitions between the ED and home or to other facilities.  Groups worked ..read more

  On 6/7/21, the FDA approved the drug Aduhelm, Biogen’s aducanumab medication, an intravenous infusion to be administered monthly for people with Alzheimer’s disease.  Despite not one member of the FDA’s Advisory panel voting to approve this med, FDA approved its use anyway.  FDA determined that since Aduhelm helped clear some amyloid protein from the brain, it may be “expected to help slow dementia.”  However, Biogen’s own data do not support such a claim, and readers can read my Personal Blogs #11 and #12 to learn more about results of clinical trials with this drug.&nbs ..read more