Chicago Medical Malpractice Lawyer Blog

We may be on the frontier of a drastically new and improved approach to diagnosis and treating Alzheimer’s disease. As a medical malpractice attorney with experience in Nursing Home litigation, I am hopeful that we can better understand Alzheimer’s disease; however, I am a proponent of thorough testing of new drugs before they are put on the market, and am hopeful that any new drugs will be tested adequately.

Alzheimer’s is a “degenerative brain disease with no treatments or clear guidelines for diagnosis before its end stages.” (G. Kolata, NY Times, 8/4). Often confused with dementia, Alzheimer’s is almost unrecognizable until it is too late for treatment, and, therefore, potential drugs are tested only once it is too late for them to have a real impact.

Researchers are hopeful that one day Alzheimer’s disease will, like heart disease, have early risk indicators that will predict who is likely to get the disease and allow for preventative treatment. New guidelines proposed by the National Institute on Aging and the Alzheimer’s Association are aligned with this goal. A main goal of the proposed guidelines is to be able to discern signs of the disease at a much earlier stage, as “researchers now agree that Alzheimer’s is smoldering in the brain a decade or more before people have any symptoms of memory loss or diminished ability to think and reason.”

Skeptics, however, are rightfully concerned that pharmaceutical companies will use this as an opportunity to maximize profits and try to get expensive drugs on the market quickly before their true validity can be tested. As such, thorough testing is an absolutely a necessity prior to releasing any new drugs for consumption.