About 5 years ago, Topeka man, Allen Davis started to experience symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia.Now he’s focused on one thing. “Hopefully it’s not getting any worse. That’s the biggest thing I think about.”
Cindy Miller, with the Alzheimer’s Association says, “Of course we know the incidents of disease is increasing. We have more and more people being diagnosed.”
Alzheimer’s Disease has no cure, but research and clinical trials are trying to change that.
Soon after getting diagnosed, Allen and his family decided that he should apply to be a part of a trial. He was accepted in a 4 year study, using the technique of delayed infusion, treating patients with either a placebo or trial medication dose.
“He has a one hour infusion, there’s a prep for it, so the whole thing lasts about three hours,” explains Jane Davis, Allen’s wife and caregiver.
Allen goes to KU Medical Center every 6 weeks for the trial and infusions. Doctors monitor him through MRI’s and cognitive studies. He is now 3 years into the trial and Allen says, he wants to things to come from it.
“Maybe this will be useful to me and hopefully it will be useful to others as well.”
“I think what it has done is its provided hope for both of us, that while we are not expecting it to cure his Alzheimer‘s it may delay it or it may just have a physiological affect. It just gives us a sense of doing something because it’s a disease that you feel you have no control over,” his wife, Jane says.
“I am so thankful to every single person who participates in a trial because it’s a huge gift for me and just for our society, so that we can absolutely eradicate this disease someday,” says Cindy Miller.
That’s a sentiment shared by many.
