Search for Alzheimer’s treatment

Study may contribute to effort

Marcia Cotê has long thought that getting Alzheimer’s disease was inevitable.

The 73-year-old Groton resident has the illness on both sides of her family: both her mother and an aunt on her father’s side had the common form of dementia.

“I always assumed I’d get Alzheimer’s,” she said. “I thought I’d wake up one day and not recognize my husband.”

So when Cotê heard that New England Institute for Clinical Research in Stamford — where she was already seeking treatment for migraines — needed volunteers for a nationwide study aimed at finding a medication to cure Alzheimer’s, she wanted to participate.

The study, called the Generation Program, is seeking volunteers ages 60 to 75 who haven’t been diagnosed with a memory disorder.

Volunteers get tested to see if they have a gene that puts them at high risk for Alzheimer’s. If they test positive for the gene, they are given either a test medicine or a placebo for five to eight years.

The idea is to see if the high-risk people taking the new medication develop Alzheimer’s.

“I thought ‘I can participate and maybe I can help others,’ ” Cotê said.

According to the Alzheimer’s Association, more than 5 million Americans are living with Alzheimer’s. That number is expected to explode to 16 million by 2050. In Connecticut, there are roughly 77,000 people with Alzheimer’s.

There are expected to be 91,000 by 2025.

The aging of the sizable baby boomer population is also spiking numbers, making it essential to find a remedy for the illness as soon as possible, said Dr. Peter McAllister, medical director of the New England Institute for Clinical Research in Stamford.

“As baby boomers get older, there’s going to be a huge glut of people with memory disorders,” he said. “Alzheimer’s will be more expensive to treat than cancer. We have to find a cure.”

Christy Kovel, public policy director for the Connecticut chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, agreed that studies like the Generation Program are essential. She pointed out that, this year alone, Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia will cost the nation $277 billion. That cost that could soar as high as $1.1 trillion by 2050.

Both the financial cost and the human cost of the illness — which is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States — mean something has to be done, Kovel said.

“We are aging as a nation and aging as a state,” she said. “We need to get people involved in trials.”

Stamford is one of two Generation Program study sites in Connecticut. The other is Yale University’s Alzheimer’s Disease Research Unit in New Haven. About 90 study sites nationwide are looking to enroll a total of about 1,340 people in the trials.

Anyone can come to a study site and get a cheek swab done to see if they are qualified to participate. Researchers are specifically looking for participants with a gene called APOE4, which significantly increases the risk of developing Alzheimer’s.

McAllister said that once tested, people have the option of learning if they have the gene. Those who have the gene can be enrolled in the clinical trial.

The trial is testing a medication that might be able to prevent amyloid proteins — thought to cause Alzheimer’s — from building up in the brain.

Cotê, as it turns out, didn’t have APOE4, and wasn’t eligible to participate in the trials. She said learning that she wasn’t at elevated risk of Alzheimer’s was shocking, but she still can’t let go of the idea that she will some day get the disease.

Regardless of whether she gets the illness or is eligible to participate in the study, Cotê said the Generations Program is a valuable project.

“There are so many people who will be getting Alzheimer’s and it’s such a nasty way to go,” she said.

To learn more about the Generation Program, including how to get tested for eligibility in the trial, visit www.generation program.com/#Main.