There is exciting new Alzheimer’s disease research that could lead to a new diagnostic brain scan.
Researchers are enrolling patients who are at the end of life.
Joseph Murphy said his sister Maureen DiGregorio is a "very warm, loving person."
"For her to be in the situation she’s in, she’s lost all independence, she’s lost all care of herself," Murphy said.
DiGregorio’s decline began six years ago when she was just 51 years old.
"She was irritable and not herself," daughter Ashley Medina said.
Medina and Murphy took DiGregorio in for testing and it turned out that she had Alzheimer’s.
"It progressed very quickly," Medina said.
DiGregorio, now 57, is near death and enrolled in a study that won’t help her but promises to help millions of others.
"What I’m so moved about is the volunteerism," Dr. Stephen Salloway, Butler Hospital’s memory and aging program director, said.
As part of the study, DiGregorio had a brain scan a week ago and after she dies, she will undergo an autopsy. Earlier research showed a link between buildup of the protein amyloid and Alzheimer’s disease.
Now, they are looking to confirm the protein tau is also prominent.
"We think that amyloid protein is building up first but not long after that, tau protein is also building up and it’s when the tau protein builds up and starts to spread in the brain is when the memory loss starts to occur," Salloway said.
While they can see tau protein on pet scans now, they U.S. Food and Drug Administration requires it be confirmed though autopsy. Volunteers have a scan before death and an autopsy afterward.
"It’s for people who are terminally ill who have less than six months to live," Salloway said. "They can have dementia or not. They could have cancer causing their terminal illness with totally normal memory."
That way, they can prove the tau protein is in the Alzheimer’s brain and not the normal brain, and that promises to help doctors better treat people with the memory-robbing disease.
"I know that she, herself, would want to help others," Medina said.
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