Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials, Part 4 with Dr. Cherian Verghese

*The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.

The following podcast is provided by a Thera Farma and answers for elders radio and welcome back everyone to answers for elders radio network. And we are here again with Dr Fer Geese and he and I have been talking about Alzheimer’s disease and certainly Alzheimer’s disease as if you’ve been listening with us, this our pretty amazing statistics that are going on out there. And Specifically, Dr Regiez, I want to welcome you back to the show and in our last segment I really want to talk about getting people the, I guess, the tools to be able to reach out and and get, you know, participate in a trial. You know, I know that it’s it’s hard for people to ask for help and and it’s a lot of its denial. It’s like, I don’t want to acknowledge the fact that I’m having these symptoms, I don’t want to you know, I don’t want to bother my family. All those little things that you know, there their pride factors. All of those things tell me a little bit, Dr Rigie. I mean, how are those things manifesting in people to to refuse trials? I mean I guess that’s my question. Yes, and for Lucy, you have to understand. I mean I’m a specialist in psychiatry and neurology. If it’s something like cancer, okay, people are heart disease, be will say my body is failing me. Yeah, it comes to your mind or your brain, people think I am failing. Yeah, you know, they take it as a personal thing. But yet our mind sits in the brain. Yeah, brain and mind are kind of affused entity. They are. Yeah, these are illnesses, just like cancer, just like HIV, just like covid and saying it ain’t so doesn’t change it. And if you have the illness, you have it. Now, in the old days I can understand that. You know, there was, as I called a sense of learned helplessness that yeah, you can do anything about it, so why bother? But that’s not the case anymore. And it’s not just the socalled patients, it’s also the children and the spouses and the neighbors and the friends, and we all need to be aware of this. You know, I when I teach I say, you know, everybody knows the symptoms of a heart attack, right chest pain, sweating, collapsing. Everyone knows the symptoms of a stroke. Your face starts to troop. Everyone knows. If you have a lump in your breast, are you pulling blood? Are you being our blood? That could mean cancer. Not many people know the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease, true, especially the early symptoms. So I like what you’re saying. If some people think, oh well, it’s just you know, it’s old timer’s disease, ha ha ha. You know, I forgot or anything like that. Those are like and yes, there’s an element of that’s normal that, like you just said, do you remember what you were last Tuesday? Those are details and and I think it’s your own abilities to it’s like, I know I’m not a detailed person. I get it. I am totally a visionary and and I I have to concentrate on you know, did I remember to, you know, pay the electric bill this month? You know, it’s it’s these are details that I don’t do well with. But you know what, I married my the detail master, right. So, understanding, we all have strengths and I know we’re not talking about everyday things. We’re talking about situations where maybe I loved one, you know, your spouse and all of a sudden, you know your wife, your husband, and you’re looking at your wife and saying, you know she is it displaying some of these early sem not as sharp asy she used to be. And one of the first and most important symptoms is the subjective feeling that my brain is not what it used to be. It takes more effort, it’s harder for me to do things that I could do easily and, especially if it seems to be going down, the senior moment is kind of at a plateau. But if this is getting worse and it’s harder and harder for you to do things, if you forget Monday and everyday things, you’re asking the same question, even though it was told you before. You need to use your cell phone or posted notes. Here’s a one, especially in pandemic times and when we’re all binge watching. If you find it difficult to follow the plot, a good one. Yeah, because that’s all short term new learning. Yeah, so the spouse will say, who’s that person? Why are they doing this? Or, you know, you see the same movie again and you don’t realize that you have watched it. You know. So these are all symptoms of early Alzheimer’s disease. You know, and what I would suggest to people as look for a clinical trial near you. There’s a government website called clinical trials dot gof okay, you can go to clinical www, dot clinical trials. Go look for trials that are going on in your neighborhood. Yeah, unfortunately there aren’t trial centers across the country. They mainly focus on the bigger cities and you know, it’s usual to say go to your doctor, but often doctors also not as clued into what is going on and part of my job here in Philadelphia from Keystone clinical studies is to educate both the professional community and the general public. So thank you, so Xann, for doing this, because this is part of that educational process to get the MESSAGESES. I know I have several people that you know. One of the things I love is I know a friend of mine. He’s take his dad to lunch every Tuesday. They would have a standing date once every Tuesday because it was routine right, and dad always he and they had a father son day once week, which I thought was really amazing. Well, all of a sudden dad had a hard time ordering for the menu. That was the clue. When he was used to going out to lunch. Every week. They went to the same restaurant, but he couldn’t even he was now having a hard time trying to figure out what he wanted to eat and how to order it, and I thought that was kind of interesting. And he goes. You know, the first time I didn’t think too much about it, but it kept getting worse and he goes. That was the key that I realize that we needed to get help. So those are little things too. I’m in sure that’s a part of it as well, right, and we all need to look out for each other. I mean, if you’re probablingly going somewhere there ask you, do you have all these symptoms of Covid you know, we’ve been doing that in the last two years. We’ve been sensitized to looking out for these some yeah, we all wear a mask when we’re going up. I think we need to take this to the next level to look at Alzheimer’s, which is an epidemic that is going to make all this look like a walk in the park, because it’s a slow burn, long term problem. You want, it’s a need to educate ourselves and look out, as you say, you know, watch out for these symptoms yeah, and we have to look at a crystal ball coming up. I mean, the fact of the matter being is like what you said, it’s the inverted triangle. It’s you know, we’re going to have so many people needing care with so many little amount of people to help, unless we step in and start making the bold choices, and that means that, you know, all of us, I think, have a responsibility. You know, if we have a loved one, not only are you’re getting giving them an opportunity to have treatment that is probably going to do far better than what’s previous, what’s out there already, they’re going to get the finest in medical care because of people that know and specialize in a disease that no more about. You know. You know the disease that they’re suffering with was Alzheimer’s De Gee than any regular doctor would even begin to know, and that’s the thing. I think that you know, really is important that by participating in these types of trials, you know you’re getting the very, very best that’s out there and you’re getting the highest level of, you know, medical professionals that are there to work with you, and I know that you know that’s the great thing about working with a trial, because the doctors that work these trials they’re the finest, you know, they’re the cream of the crop experien person. Yeah, yeah, so. So, Dr r geese tell and I know we only have about four mitts left, but I want to learn a little bit about your Specific Research Clinic Institute and and where you are in Philadelphia. So let me just step back, you know, when we talk about treatments, you know, I just want will say that there’s no single magic bullet. You know. Now let’s think about, say, diabetes. You know how many classes of medicines there are? You know, there are oral medicines and injectable medicines, there’s long acting medicines, HIV. We were able to really get on top of HIV with the triple yeah adication regimen. Heart disease die you know, asthma. All of these illnesses require different approaches, you know, medicines that works for different mechanisms to get at their disease. So similarly, Alzheimer’s is as complicated, if not more complicated, than these illnesses. So we are looking at medicines that hit it from different approaches for different stages of the disease, and that’s where the field is at and that’s what we do at our site here keystone clinical studies. We have one, maybe two studies for prevention of Alzheimer’s, studies for the early stages of mild cognitive repayment and the ethera study is a very important part of people who already have some amount of Alzheimer’s dementia. And there are medicines that are hitting the amyloid in terms of mechanisms, medicines that are hitting the taut tangles. There are medicines like this that are for neuro regeneration to help the brain rewire itself. We’re doing a Parkinson’s disease study with with for first Gonamenton. Yes, yes, so we are hitting this illness from different approaches, different mechanisms of action at different stages, and that’s really what we need overall, and I’m sure that this is going to be a very important part of the tool kit of doctors. Right right. Well, I’m very excited about a program that we’ve got put together and certainly we want to encourage each and everyone of you that are listening. If you know of someone, no matter what stage they are, with Alzheimer’s, there probably is something available for you, and certainly Dr Raghee I. It’s been such a pleasure for you to be on the program with us today and I am going to give again a website out to to everyone. If you’re interested or just want more information, please go to www dot lift. That’s elift AD, which stands for Alzheimer’s diseasecom. There is a website give you all the information. And also, how do we reach your clinic? If you’re in the greater filly area? It’s very easy. Just Google Keystone Clinical Studiescom or call our office, which is hundred and two do seven seven eight, hundred and seven three, six ten do seven seven eighty seventy three hestone clinical studiescom. And again, we want to hear your stories. We want to hear about your successes and what you’re going on. So you can find us always on Google, spotify, apple and more. and Dr Vergheese, thank you again for being with us this hour. It’s been a real pleasure to have you. Thank you. Thank you, Susan, for what you’re doing, and thanks to a theater of for spreading the world to absolutely and and for each and every one of you this week. Please reach out to a loved one. Please think about the people that you could help, make a difference in their life and always be good to each other. The preceding podcast was provided by a Thera farmer and answers for elders radio. For more information about the Alzheimer’s clinical trial, go to a thera clinical trialscom