“Let's put it this way, it's been 25 years of nothing,” neurologist Dr. David Beversdorf said. “So, we're in a really interesting time in the field of Alzheimer's disease, which is something I could not have told you for the past 25 years.”
Dr. Beversdorf works at University of Missouri Health Care and works with patients with dementia and memory disorders, such as Alzheimer’s disease. According to the Alzheimer’s Association, more than 120,000 Missourians are living with the disease.
Beversdorf said in the last few years, there have been several Alzheimer’s treatment options that have become available and a new blood test was just approved by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration in May that detects the presence of amyloid plaques in a patient’s brain - a hallmark sign of the disease.
Previously, patients would have to undergo costly, timely and invasive procedures, such as PET scans or spinal taps, to get the same information.
“All of us in the field are really kind of excited. We're a little cautious, because we don't yet know, you know, is this making a major difference in these individuals' lives down the pike, or is this kind of propping them up just a little bit?” Dr. Beversdorf said.
He added that, right now, anti-amyloid treatments are only available if the previously available PET scans or spinal taps are used to confirm the presence of the plaques, but he hopes this will change to include the blood test in the near future.
“It's recently FDA approved, so mechanisms for ordering it are still emerging,” Dr. Beversdorf said. "So that's the one thing that's holding me back, right now, from using the blood test more.”
Dr. Beversdorf encouraged all people – even those only exhibiting mild memory lapses – to seek out help if they are concerned about Alzheimer's or other memory loss disorders.
“Because there now is something that we can do that may help, if in a certain set of individuals, and also they're the things that one may use to mitigate risk going forward,” Dr. Beversdorf said. “So, there are a really long list of really good reasons to go ahead and get it checked out.”
