Living With Early-Onset Alzheimer's

Early-onset Alzheimer's accounts for only 5 percent of all Alzheimer's cases, but delayed diagnoses can allow the disease to progress beyond the reach of the most effective early-stage interventions, reports the Jackson Laboratory . For many such people, one option is participation in clinical trials, says Dr. Cliff Singer at Acadia Hospital in Maine. "It at least makes you feel like you're doing something," he notes. Healthy friends and family who want to contribute to the research effort can participate in certain trials as controls or donate funds to support basic science research. Singer hopes to find interventions that can completely stop Alzheimer's in the early stages, limiting the effects to mild impairments such as memory loss. "The best hope for finding real effective therapies, maybe even cures, for Alzheimer's disease lies in the interactions and collaboration between the basic scientist and clinical scientist and clinicians," he says. The Jackson Laboratory has multiple research groups working to understand and treat Alzheimer's, including the lab of JAX Professor Catherine Kaczorowski. Her team concentrates on people who should have Alzheimer's, due to specific genetic predispositions, yet show no symptoms. "Our hypothesis is that they are harboring factors that are protecting their brains," Kaczorowski says. "That is resilience." Once her team figures out those protective factors, they can collaborate with clinicians to develop treatments that incorporate this resilience.