Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia and accounts for approximately 60-80% of cases. At present, more than 5.8 million Americans are living with AD and it is now the 6th leading cause of death across the United States accounting
for 1 in 3 deaths among our senior communities, killing more than breast cancer and prostate cancer combined. In 2020, AD cost the US $305B and is expected to increase to $1.1T by 2050. Presently, 50% of primary care physician believe that the health
care industry is not ready for the ever-increasing number of patients with AD or one of its related dementias, emphasizing the need for increased research funding and infrastructure to deal with these epidemic levels.
One of the major hurdles is that currently has no cure is available for AD and existing treatment modalities only treat symptoms associated with the disease and not AD itself. Another major impediment is the accurate diagnosis of AD. We need to be able
to identify or predict those people at greatest risk of developing the disease years before clinical symptoms become apparent and irreversible brain damage has occurred. To this end, there is a worldwide effort under way to find better ways to treat
the disease, delay its onset, diagnose it earlier and prevent it from developing. Current therapies in stage III clinical trials are showing fantastic promise and we hope that some of these will become available in the coming years. Learn more about
Alzheimer’s disease, available treatments and support for those people and family members dealing with the disease.
AD Research at Beaumont focuses on finding the “right treatment, to the right patient, at the right time.” Moreover, we are using translational research approaches, on multiple different platforms, to determine if we can rapidly transition
the research in our laboratories to the clinic and bedside to best care for our patients with AD.