“We hope that treatments can be developed within the next four or five years.”

Currently, hope is placed on a pharmacological treatment currently being evaluated in the European Medicines Agency and whose security risks are currently being taken into account. All this data emerged from the information event that took place at the Cordoba Hospital on the occasion of the celebration of World Alzheimer’s Day, on September 21. The hospital’s neurology specialists agree on the increasingly early detection of people with Alzheimer’s diseasea very significant fact given the progressive loss of autonomy that it can cause. It is the most common form of dementia.

“We hope that in the In the next four or five years, there could be treatments “that they can always start to be administered to very specific groups of people and in a very specific phase of the disease,” said the neurologist Reina Sofía, Fernando Acebron, about this drug studied in Europe. “So there is a moderate hope, we cannot say that we are going to cure but we can find groups of patients who in five or ten years will be able to benefit from it. therapies“.

Alzheimer’s disease is most common between the ages of 65 and 70, although in Andalusia it appears every year between 150 and 200 cases of presenile Alzheimer’s, that is to say before the age of 65, and which represents between 20 and 30% of cases. It is the most common cause of dementia and results in a loss of function for the affected person.

San Rafael Residence

“The reason lies in an abnormal deposit of proteins that interfere with communication between neurons, which causes the alteration of different brain functions, the most typical being memory, although there may be others, such as language or executive or visual-spatial functions,” said another neurologist at the hospital, José Javier Bravo.

Alzheimer’s disease, from its detection to its fatal outcome, offers a perspective of approximately ten to twelve years of life. For memory disorders to be considered worrying at the beginning of the disease, they must have repercussions on their daily lives, that is, “when I make a mistake when making a purchase, or when they reimburse me, when I don’t make purchases. I don’t know how to manage money at the bank, otherwise I get lost in the neighborhood where I’ve lived for 40 or 50 years,” said the hospital’s general director, Francisco Triviño.

THE Alzheimer’s Association of San Rafael set up an information table at the Reina Sofía. Its president, Francisco Manuel Blasco, announced that the entity’s residence, in response to demand, will soon increase the number of places in its residence by four more. The Commission’s Health Delegate, María Jesús Botella, also participated in the information session at the Reina Sofía.