What ‘life changing’ drugs?

[Jaded'n'faded]

Pharmaceutical companies are interested in making money, just like any other business. They don't research new drugs because they care about people or want to relieve suffering, it's all about how much money they can make.

I've also noticed a lot of 'repurposing' of drugs, such as the mono-clonal antibodies. If it doesn't work for one thing, e.g. cancer, let's try it for something else, e.g. dementia.

My brother has a rare disease that has seriously affected how he is able to live his life. He knows there will never be any drugs for him or much research because not enough people have it so drug companies could never make a profit. And that is the bottom line.

 

[Lawson58]

I think it's always going to be very difficult to diagnose early if GPs just use the MMSE. I agree @Lawson58 we need better diagnostic tools - something along the lines of a simple yes/no blood test. If only we could find something specific in the blood that meant you were definitely going to get dementia and was measurable by the age of 30! Maybe then we'd have a chance at treating it effectively.

But I'm thinking that's unlikely. It might be possible for Alzheimer's or some hereditary dementias but things like vascular dementia often develop only after a stroke and who knows who is going to have a stroke? For that we can only go on all the usual things we're supposed to do to prevent (lessen the chance of) strokes. So it's back to healthy diet and exercise, no smoking, etc. But that is not an answer! If anything, it draws us away from looking for the origins of dementia in the brain and I really think that's where we should be looking.

If I decide to put my billions of spare cash into research/pharmaceuticals, that's the direction I would go. I would not be looking for drugs to 'treat' dementia once it is very apparent because I don't really think that is possible. I'd love to be wrong.

And vascular dementia is a good point because its origins are completely different to the development of Alzheimer’s and requires a different approach.

I know my husband was showing signs of dementia long before it developed into something serious enough to seek a diagnosis. The critical thing is that I thought they were a few little odd things but I can only recognise them for what they were in hindsight. So does that mean eventually doing a mass screening program and which diseases would you include?

Soooooo complicated!

 

[Palerider]

I think vascular dementia is a good comparison against Alzheimer's dementia because the pathway to both is entirely different. But then if you break down vascular dementia that in itself has slightly different mechanisms at play and is not always preceded by ischemic stroke or TIA. Sometimes in vascular dementia the mechanism centers around micro clots as opposed to larger main arterial branches so it can be hard to pick up on micro changes early enough, whereas major stroke is obvious. The other problem is that the cause of these small clots is not entirely clear, but thought to be related to common co-morbidities, but not necessarily so in each case as well as some familial influence.

Alzheimer's is an entirely different mechanism to brain cell death but ultimately both types of dementia lead to just that, death of brain cells.

I think its a valid thing to question what is meant by what we read in the news, because clearly even considering only two of the main types of dementia there are very significantly different pathways to what is ultimately brain cell death. I also think its time we stopped using the word 'dementia' because it doesn't accurately describe the disease as a current label