This is a development which, despite whatever natural skepticism that I might have about such items, could be enormously positive for the millions of people – not just the very old – who fall victim to the terrible disease of Alzheimer’s.
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A possible breaththrough for Alzheimer’s sufferersMarch 5th, 2011 |
 13 comments to A possible breaththrough for Alzheimer’s sufferers |
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It’s getting difficult for me to avoid cynicism regarding medical breakthroughs. You read about them every day. Breakthroughs in the treatment of cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, heart disease.
But they never seem to make it to the clinic. I’m scratching my head trying to think of an honest to God clinical breakthrough that’s occurred in the last 20 years, and outside of AIDS drugs I’m not coming up with anything.
Research demonstrates that bilingual people – that is, those who regularly use more than one language – develop Alzheimer’s around 4 years later than the monolingual. Good argument for making sure your kids learn at least one second language.
Breakthroughs are becoming increasingly rare, Eric, I agree – all the low hanging fruit have been plucked.
But your qualification, “outside of AIDS drugs”, is a pretty big qualification. Despite the absence of a headline making AIDS cure, those cocktails of different drugs combatting this or that aspect of AIDS have transformed the life-expectancy of those diagnosed HIV positive and those with AIDS. Twenty years ago, once you got the diagnosis, it was a matter of start saying your goodbyes now. That just isn’t so nowadays, at least in the West.
Cholesterol-lowering statins are probably a significant breakthrough, and have been on the market for just under 25 years, so kind of fits your time window. Avostatin (Lipitor) was first synthesized in 1985 and reached the market in 1997.
Not true. You just don’t hear much after the journalist makes their splash over the top head lines. Would you rather have had cancer in 1960 or now? With the exception of certain very bad types, many of them have become curable or at the very least there are methods which extend life for many years beyond what was possible then.
Life spans keep increasing. We haven’t quite reached a year/year, but things are getting far better. If you live another 30 years, you may live for centuries or millenia.
I think Viagra occurred in the last 20 years. 🙂
I think I know why I was smited. 😉
Of course there have been breakthroughs. When I was a kid the dentist once put me to sleep with some gas (poss nitrous oxide, not sure). Now they just give you a jab (or, in the Third World, play you a Phil Collins single). Similarly, earwax. As recently as five years ago they used to squirt water in your ear to get it out. Now they use a reverse peashooter. That’s real progress. Also, my gran had a bunion removed with a circular saw. I was always too scared to have mine done, but I understand that now they use, well, a circular saw, OK, but a really cool electrically powered one. Medicine is progressing in leaps and bounds as far as I can see.
Eric – I can only assume that is because you get your medical knowledge from the tabloids, not from medical journals.
Over the last 20 years, open heart bypass surgery has peaked, PCIs and stenting risen, peaked (outside the UK which is behind the curve) with a lot of innovation now in minimally invasive heart surgery. The basic pacemaker has become a multi-lead smart implantable device.
Cancer outcomes have been changed beyond recognition – generations of new drugs have come and gone – including exotic things like radioactive isotopes being targeted to the tumours by genetically engineered mouse antibodies. New radiosurgery techniques using amazing kit like the cyberknife have arrived, along with clinical use of proton therapy especially for early childhood tumours. Whole new modalities such as high-intensity focused ultrasound, including new MRI guided versions are used to ablate polyps and tumours. In surgery surgeons perform robotic microsurgery, with a precision and steadiness that is not possible by hand.
Many rare diseases that blight a few hundred or thousand lives are being tackled by new biologics. Even in mass market pharmacy, new and better members of classes and new classes of drugs treating the same conditions have been found. The treatment of hypertension now is more effective with less symptons than it used to be.
I’m getting bored. There is much much more if you care to look.
@Eric
Got diabetes mellitus type 1 at the age of 2. Back then my parents had to stick me with a needle maybe 10 times as thick as the ones I use now. Very painful for a small child. Needles were recycled back then, so you had to boil stuff between injections.
Today, we don’t recycle needles and they are a lot thinner than they used to be. Eye-screenings are part of the standard treatment protocol, making it possible to spot damage to the blood-vessels in the eyes before they lead to vision loss; back then you just got blind. Both treatment and diagnostics related to kidney damage has also increased dramatically, and new blood pressure medications can now at least in part counteract the very highly elevated cardiovascular risk related to diabetic nephropathy. The Hba-1c’s relation to the risk of developing complications is much better understood now, and it has resulted in a much greater focus on this metric in a clinical setting, making it easier for diabetics to ascertain how well they’re regulated.
Insulin itself has also been improved a lot, resulting for instance in the now widespread use of insulin analogs. Neither of the two types of insulin I’m currently treated with were developed 20 years ago; you couldn’t find a drug working as fast as the one I’m using for meals now back then, not even in a hospital setting. The new medications have made the disease easier to manage resulting in a better quality of life. Also making things easier to manage is the rapid development in/improvement of testing materials over the last 20 years, making both faster and more precise estimates of blood glucose levels available to the patient.
Management of chronic wounds has improved in the clinical setting, decreasing the risk of amputations – i.e. by the more widespread use of ‘wound teams’ in hospitals. The elevated infection risk is taken into account today when diabetics have surgery, resulting in somewhat better outcomes.
I actually have a hard time coming up with an area where there has not been at least some improvement. Maybe on the psychiatric side of the equation; diabetics have elevated suicide risks and I doubt any breakthroughs have happened in that area.
I agree that a certain amount of cynicism regarding medical ‘breakthroughs’ is merited. But that skepticism should not overshadow the fact that a lot of stuff has happened over the last decades which have dramatically improved people’s lives.
Another medical breakthrough not brought to us by the NHS of any nation.
Well, since there seem to be posters with a bit of medical knowledge here, I’ll get serious for a moment.
I have emphysema, in a rather advanced stage. The medics refuse to give me a prognosis but I expect to last no more than a few months more, maybe a year at the most. I also happen to live in a Third World country. The only treatment I’ve been offered is an inhaler (“budesonide”) to be taken at night, which doesn’t actually seem to do much. I sometimes idly wonder if the treatment would be any different, or better, in somewhere like the UK. I somehow doubt it, since there really ain’t much you can do with lungs that have turned into Walkers Crisps packets, but there it is anyway. Like I say, just wondering.
Aspirin at the onset of non-traumatic chest pain.
Idiot-proof external defibrillation. Damn close to magic.
And what the man said about cancer. The Former Mrs. Sunfish was effectively cured by a new approach to cancer drug combinations, one incidentally not found in ANY socialist healthcare system.
EndivioR:
I had an encounter once with Ecuador’s health care system (three wild-ass claims for the price of one) and feel your pain. H have you tried any US facilities? I don’t have any specific pointers, but emphysema and COPD are seniors’ diseases here, and seasoned citizens here have money, and where there’s money, there’s R&D.