The Analysis of The Article "Precision Medicine Offers a Glimmer of Hope for Alzheimer's Disease" by Melissa Healy

In the article, “Precision medicine offers a glimmer of hope for Alzheimer's disease” by Melissa Healy, states that it has been 20 years of searching for effective ways to find a cure or prevent Alzheimer's have been unsuccessful. According to Healy, there has been 5.7 million seriously affected Americans without the means of survival from this disease. The focus of this research is about a new experimental precision medicine study has been found leading to probable real results and hope of a treatment for Alzheimers.

The author mainly discusses the research studies approach of the dementia specialist gathering at the Alzheimer’s Assn.’s International Conference in Chicago to evaluate the real hope in both precision medicine and the innovative clinical trials studies to be able to convey new treatments for the brain disease. The independent variable was the different existing stages of Alzheimer's in patients. The dependent variable was the level of reduction of plaque in the brain with early Alzheimer’s opposed to a typical genetic substance for Alzheimer’s, and there were 856 patients enrolled in this innovative clinical trials for case study BAN2401.

As for case study, Anavex 2-73 was the level of patient ability to reason, remembered and function daily activities on their own. By examining 32 patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s and gene compatibility with the substance in order for it to work successfully according to the researchers. The researcher's outcome demonstrated effectiveness results in both precision medicines with Alzheimer patients. The results for case study BAN2401, patients who ingested a higher dosage of the medication over 18 months saw results in the reduction of amyloid plaque in the brain; oppose to the patients who took a higher dosage of for the same amount of months of the generic drug, 26% of the patients outcomes slowly declined. As for case study Anavex 2-73 patients who were genetically compatible to the medication and took it for 57 weeks, saw amazing results such as the patient communicating properly, understand and function their daily routines.

The researchers, on both study, demonstrated a successful outcome with their patients in the clinical trials. The clinical study for BAN2401 showed progress. According to James A. Hendrix, director of global science initiatives at the Alzheimer’s Assn. States that, “Alzheimer’s disease trials need to evolve,” by trying new things and learn about other diseases such as cancer, by approaching an effective way of therapy to a cure this disease. He also states that he would like to advance in diagnosing earlier symptoms before the disease takes into an effect and for individuals without symptoms. I agree with Hendrix statement because his approach into expanding his research to exploring other diseases such as cure cancer and as well as wanting to advance his research into finding an earlier approach detecting this destructive brain disease is a magnificent idea. This will definitely have a world impact on our future and give hope to the ones who genetically will get affected by this disease. As for the other precision medicine, Anavex 2-73 also showed progressed.

The author states that researchers have expanded their clinical trials for Alzheimer’s to Australia and North America by furthering the experimental medication testing on treating dementia associated with Parkinson’s disease, for Rett syndrome, and for Fragile X syndrome. (Healy, M (2018), Precision medicine offers a glimmer of hope for Alzheimer's disease, pp13) Christopher Missiling, president and chief executive of Anavex Life Sciences Corp states that, “If you include a biomarker, which can be detected in a matter of hours or days by a swab test, then you can enrich a study” — enroll just the subjects most likely to respond — “and of course, improve the chances of success” (Retrieved from article http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-alzheimers-precision-medicine-20180726-story.html#) I agree with his statement because I think it would be a great idea to be able to personally customized your medication based on your genes and having results oppose to a temporary fix medication, or the assumption that it might work. If this medication was to advance more than Christopher Missiling stated in the article, this will drastically make a huge impact on everyone lives who suffer from some kind of disease and hopefully less damaging to our liver and overall health as well.

The reason I chose this topic to research this disease is that both of my grandparents have severe Alzheimer’s, and my other grandmother from my father side has schizophrenia and dementia. So, I’m pretty much screwed since this disease is passed down genetically, and I also wanted to take this opportunity to inform myself of any new research studies based on this brain disease and give myself some kind of hope to a cure as well. My independent variable would be the presence genetic family history of Alzheimer’s with younger adults between the age of mid 20s to 30s and individuals who do not have a genetic family history of Alzheimer’s. The dependent variable would be examined on cognitive skills such as memory retention, attention, auditory reasoning, and logical reasoning for both of these groups; However, I think it would be a great idea to further the study based on gender in whom the brain disease affects more and why. My independent variable for this study would be the different memory effects based on a gender. My dependent variable would be based on a lifestyle and overall health.