Dementia Breakthroughs

After decades of disappointments, new treatments and tests are finally here

- Vanessa Milne

EIGHT YEARS AGO, neurologist Dan Gibbs was sitting in a room with two dozen doctors and researchers. He was getting ready to look at brain scans-not a patient's, but his own. They would definitively answer a question he'd had for years: What was wrong with him?

It started when he was 55 and working in Portland, Oregon. He noticed he couldn't smell certain things, like flowers. Then he began to smell things that weren't there, like perfume, citrus or baking bread. He randomly got a clue as to what might be the cause after doing an at-home DNA test to find out more about his family tree.

The results showed he had two copies of a gene, APOE4, that increases the risk of developing Alzheimer's. He was shocked: Before his genetic test, it had never occurred to him that he might get the disease.

At the time, he had no memory symptoms, but over the next few years, he noticed some mild memory problems, like forgetting his colleagues' names and having difficulty memorizing his new office phone number. That, combined with his background as a researcher, led him to participate in a study at the University of California, San Francisco that was focused on diagnosing Alzheimer's.

And now the results were in.

The researchers pulled up the pictures and showed him beta-amyloid plaques in different parts of his brain, including his prefrontal cortex and the olfactory area, which controls smell. It was a sign of early-stage Alzheimer's.

Surprisingly, Dr. Gibbs was happy: "When they showed me the scans, it was a relief to have a firm diagnosis," he says.

What Is Dementia? 

Dementia is an umbrella term for a group of symptoms contributing to a decline in memory, thinking, reasoning and social abilities. It's progressive, and some people with dementia will need around-the-clock help at the end of their lives.