Joe Walsh, who suffers from an Alzheimer’s disease, is accompanied by his wife, Karen Walsh, an appointment at Brigham and Women’s hospital in Boston. Joe receives experimental therapy to treat Alzheimer’s disease.
Jodi Hilton / For NPR
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Jodi Hilton / For NPR
Joe Walsh, 79, is waiting to inhale.
He is perched on a tanned chair at the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Boston. His wife, Karen Walsh, hovers on him, ready to depress the piston on a nasal spray applicator.
“One, two, three,” has a nurse. The piston plunges, walsh sniffs, and it’s done.
The nasal spray contains an experimental monoclonal antibody intended to reduce inflammation linked to Alzheimer’s in Walsh’s brain.
He is the first person living with Alzheimer’s to obtain treatment, which is also tested in people with diseases such as multiple sclerosis, SLA and COVVI-19.
And the drug seems to reduce the inflammation of Walsh’s brain, report researchers in the journal Clinical nuclear medicine.
“I think it’s something special,” said Dr. Howard Weiner, Masse -General Brigham neurologist who helped develop the nasal spray, as well as its creator, Tiziana Life Sciences.
However, a decrease in inflammation will bring improvements in the thought and memory of Walsh remains uncertain.
Experimental treatment is part of a greater effort to find new ways to interrupt the cascade of events in the brain which lead to the dementia of Alzheimer.
Two drugs now on the market clarify the brain of sticky amyloid plates, tufts of toxic protein that accumulate between neurons. Other experimental drugs have targeted the tangles of Tau, a different protein that accumulates inside nerve cells.
But less effort has tried to fight against inflammation, a sign of Alzheimer’s which becomes more pronounced as the disease progresses.
Dr. Brahyan Galindo-Mendez, on the right, administers an eye tracking test towards Walsh after treatment.
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Jodi Hilton / For NPR
A diagnosis and a quest for care
Once Joe Walsh has finished inhaling the experimental medication, he obtained a cognitive examination of Dr. Brahyan Galindo-Mendez, neurology scholarship holder.
“Can you tell me your name please,” ask Mendez. “What’s your name?”
After a break, Walsh answers: “Joe”.
“And who is with you today?” Said Mendez, take a look at Walsh’s wife, Karen.
“We will do it,” answers Walsh.
“What is his name?” Mendez persists.
“His name,” resonates Walsh. “It’s his name. She’s my wife.”
Walsh is unable to put a name for the woman with whom he has been married for 36 years.
In 2019, a PET confirmed that Joe Walsh had Alzheimer’s disease. It took Karen Walsh for years to bring her husband to a study that would offer her experimental treatment.
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Jodi Hilton / For NPR
Karen Walsh began to notice a change in her husband in 2017.
“He had trouble finding the right words to complete a thought or a sentence,” she said.
The couple went to a primary care doctor, who said that if Walsh had proven to have an Alzheimer’s disease, they should enter into a research study in the hope of obtaining one of the last treatments. Then the doctor referred Walsh to a neurologist.
In 2019, a PET revealed large amyloid plates in Walsh’s brain, confirming the diagnosis.
“As much as I was in shock,” said Karen Walsh, “words sound in my head:” Ask for research. “”
So she started looking for a clinical trial. But in 2020, Covid arrived in the United States, closing hundreds of research studies. As the pandemic calmed down, the Alzheimer’s disease of Walsh had progressed to the point where he no longer qualified for most studies.
A new drug for inflammation
At the end of 2024, Karen brought Joe to Dr. Seth Gale, Mass General Brigham’s neurologist and the Harvard Medical School who promised to seek a research study that Walsh could enter.
Before a long time, Gale received a request from a colleague looking for a patient with moderate Alzheimer’s disease to participate in a trial. He called the Walsths.
Research involved a monoclonal antibody called Foralumab which was tested on people with inflammatory diseases, including multiple sclerosis.
The nasal spraying of Foralumab, above, is tested as a treatment of Alzheimer’s disease by the researchers of the Brigham mass general.
Jodi Hilton / For NPR
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Jodi Hilton / For NPR
The MS occurs when the immune system mistakenly attacks the protective coating around the nerve fibers, causing inflammation. And Fairlumab produced promising results in patients with MS.
“He induces regulatory cells that go to the brain and closed inflammation,” said Weiner.
These regulatory cells reduce microglia activity, cells that serve as a main immune system in the brain and spinal cord.
Weiner thought that Foralumab could help with another condition that causes harmful inflammation in the nervous system.
“I have always been interested in Alzheimer’s disease,” said Weiner. “I lost my mother because of Alzheimer’s disease.”
Most efforts to treat Alzheimer’s disease involve cleaning the brain of the characteristics of the disease: sticky amyloid plates and tangled fibers called Tau. But more and more, researchers are looking for ways to repress the inflammation that accompanies these brain changes, especially since the disease progresses.
“Once people have Alzheimer’s disease, inflammation leads the disease more,” said Weiner.
Dr. Howard Weiner, neurologist in mass general Brigham, studies Foralumab for the treatment of diseases, including multiple sclerosis, COVID, SLA and Alzheimer.
Jodi Hilton / For NPR
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The approach worked in mice that develop a form of Alzheimer’s.
But to treat Walsh, the Weiner team had to obtain a special authorization from the Food and Drug Administration thanks to a program called Access. The program is intended for patients who cannot participate in a clinical trial and have no other treatment options.
When the FDA approved Fairumab for Walsh, it became the first Alzheimer’s patient to obtain the treatment.
Six months later, the medication considerably reduced Walsh’s brain inflammation. But no medication can restore the brain cells that have already been lost.
It will take a battery of cognitive tests to see if Walsh’s memory and thought have improved with treatment. Karen Walsh, however, sees some positive signs.
Although her husband still has trouble finding words, she says, he seems to be more committed to social activities.
“A few guys come to get him once a month, you know, and they take him to lunch,” she said. “They sent me an SMS after saying,” Wow, Joe is really, really laughed and very involved. “”
After three months of treatment, TEP showed that Walsh’s brain inflammation has decreased considerably.
Jodi Hilton / For NPR
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Walsh himself seems happy to stay on drugs. Between the non -sequential, he manages to set up a complete sentence: “It’s quite easy to take it, so I do it, and it feels good.”
A Foralumab clinical trial for Alzheimer’s disease is expected to start later this year.
