Introduction
Alzheimer’s disease is a chronic neurodegenerative disease that is thought to be caused mainly by Aβ plaques formation and neuro tangles. One in three seniors dies of Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia. New studies however show promise for a possible cure.
Materials and Methods
Information in this scientific review was gathered using scientific articles selected by Google Search platform using keywords: “Alzheimer’s disease”; “treatment”; ”cause”, ”studies”. Also information from ‘‘http://www.alz.org’’, Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine and Lippincott Illustrated Reviews on Pharmacol-ogy, and “http://www.alzheimers.net/resources/alzheimers-statistics/”
Results
Recent studies show that the presence of Aβ plaques in the patient’s brain can be reduced using ultrasound or Gantenerumab. Both of these methods activate the microglia of the brain which in turn removes the Aβ plaques. The ultrasound method does this by gently opening the blood-brain barrier whilst Gantenerumab encompasses both the N-terminal and the central amino acids of Aβ and then activates the microglial cells.
Discussion
Ultrasound method in animal studies shows outstanding clearance of plaques. Gantenerumab shows great reduction of plaques in human clinical trials. Both methods whilst looking very promising, are still ongoing their clinical trials.
Conclusion
Alzheimer’s disease is a commonly found disease in elderly and around 44 million people suffer from it worldwide. Whilst the newly found ways are far from being commercially available to treat Alzheimer’s they do shine a glimpse of hope in the battle with this disease.
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