Brain Pacemaker for Alzheimer’s Disease
Last October, 57-year-old Kathy Sanford underwent groundbreaking surgery to have a pacemaker implanted in her brain to help with the effects of early onset Alzheimer’s Disease.
There is a certain degree of helplessness that a person can feel when reading about dementia. After all, there is no cure. There is no precise understanding of the cause. There is not even a way to delay the disease. From time to time, there are fun articles that do assuage our fears about dementia, like “Alcohol Intake in the Elderly Affects Risk of Cognitive Decline and Dementia” that allow us to think, Oh, drinking wine helps stave off dementia! But even those are to be taken with a grain of salt.
A neurologist and director of the Center for Cognitive Health at Mount Sinai Hospital, Gandy specializes in the study and treatment of dementia, focusing on Alzheimer’s disease. He has been working in the field for 25 years.
Researchers are reporting that Gammagard, made by Baxter International Inc., might help stabilize Alzheimer’s disease for as much as three years. The findings from the small study were presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. The evidence is weak and in only four patients, making the study was far too small to prove the treatment works, but it does provide hope that an effective treatment may be found.