What is the new treatment designed to help those impacted by Alzheimers Disease?
ST. LOUIS, Mo.  Regulators have approved a new treatment to address the underlying cause of Alzheimers Disease. The drug is called Aducanumab and the company that makes the drug says as many as 1.5 million will be eligible for treatment. The treatment is designed to remove sticky deposits of a protein from patients in the earlier stages of Alzheimers. Its the first FDA-approved drug that delays and slows down Alzheimers disease, said Stacy Tew-Lovasz, who is the president of the Greater Missouri Chapter of the Alzheimers Association.  It means everything to families. It means more time. They could be more independent and they can retain memories longer. So, what this does is delays the decline of the disease. However, there have been some concerns about the results of the clinical trials. So, it has been a long process, said Tew-Lovasz. Theres a three-phase process in doing clinical trials and so they made a couple of shifts along the way. By looking at the dosage of the drug, looking at when the drugs are administered and different things like that and I think for that reason it became a complicated set of data. Theyve not figured out insurance or Medicare yet, said Tew-Lovasz. Its such as a new drug that its not even going to be available for quite some time. So, we dont even know exactly when, but at this point its costly and for that reason, the Alzheimers Association is working diligently to try to work towards getting more affordable access to the drug. However, its not just the drug but you also have to qualify as a candidate. You also have to have the assessment and the assessment could be an MRI or CAT scan or PET scan, which is costly as well. So, we are working on the Federal and State level to advocate to get that to a much lower cost.