This is one of the latest Rounding@Iowa podcasts and it’s about new treatments for Azheimer’s Disease, with one specific agent called Lecanemab.
I’m an old psychiatrist, and I remember my clinical impresson of the previous medications for Alzheimer’s Disease, one of which was Donepezil. The scientific literature seemed to suggest that patients and families were more impressed with Donepezil than clinicians were.
According to Dr. Shim, one of the participants in the podcast, it’s been 20 years since there has been a new treatment for Alzheimer’s Disease-and the long term effectiveness of Lecanemab is uncertain.
In addition, there are significant risks associated with the agent as well. As you can guess, it’s very expensive, and while Medicare pays for some of the cost, the podcast participants mentioned that it was difficult to get some treatment monitoring imaging studies covered.
Patients and their physicians need to have a full discussion of the risks and benefits of treatments for Alzheimer’s Disease. It’s just as important to avoid the use of certain drugs that are known to worsen cognitive function, such as benzodiazepines and anticholinergics.
