We Walk Toward A Cure | Walk to End Alzheimers

I think the best part about all of this is that the money that we're raising at all of these walks stays right here in the community to help not only the people who have Alzheimer's, but the caregivers. It's hard to believe that we, as a Fox 29 family, have been working with the Alzheimer's Association for more than 20 years. We try and support programs and services, including a helpline, including support groups and educational programs that we have. Music It was something that was always important, always required attention and support, You all know the number, right? but the growth over the last two decades has been more than anyone could have expected. Let me tell you, it is a perfect day for this. The sun is out, it feels great out. From medical breakthroughs, to families and communities showing incredible strength and support, to hundreds of walks and events. Ten years ago when my mom was first diagnosed, We just had no hope at all. Now there's hope for people. Raising millions of dollars, the Alzheimer's Association has been unwavering in moving towards the ultimate goal the day we celebrate the first survivor of Alzheimer's disease. This trial has given us life. It gives us life every day. So for the next 30 minutes, we once again look at where we are in this fight for a cure, where we've all been. And what we can continue to do to truly make a difference. I also think it's really good for awareness and building a community for those who are out there that really just do not know what to do. So now you have an idea of how we got here. I'm Bill Anderson. But even after watching that, there's somebody who really can tell the whole story because she's been involved since the beginning. Let's talk to our Sue Serio. How'd you get involved with it? It was the year 2000. I had been working here about three years already and I was approached by someone who worked at the time at the Alzheimer's Association. They had a small little walk in Fairmount Park in the building that is now the Please Touch Museum. I understand. That's where everybody would meet, but it was not the walk it is today. So I went to the general manager at the time. His name is Roger LeMay. It's great. He said, you know what, this is really good for our viewership and the people who are taking care of their elderly parents, plus they have children to take care of. It's affected almost every family. But at the time, it still wasn't something that was that publicly talked about. It was after Ronald Reagan, it was announced that he had had Alzheimer's disease and then his daughter Maureen ended up getting it, that it started when somebody famous, unfortunately, so then it just started to be more publicized. Little by little it got bigger and bigger and outgrew Fairmont Park and now it's at Citizens Bank Park. Either the first or second largest walk in the nation. Advocate fearlessly for people who face this disease. What struck you to get involved? Why not? Okay. Because I wanted to know more about this disease. My husband's aunt had just been recently diagnosed. And she ended up going to a facility. And it was pretty heartbreaking. You end up getting to the point where you think, what if I get it? And it's not just that the money we raise goes toward The research to find a cure, but if you get a diagnosis or if someone in your family does, the Alzheimer's Association is there with help. They are so experienced in dealing with this and dealing with the caregivers, which is just as important. You can call them and they have all kinds of group meetings where you can meet with other people who are going through what you're going through. They will even... Provide somebody to stay with your person if you want to go out and just take a break from caregiving for a while. It's amazing what they can do. So the more I learned about it, the more I just thought the world of it. And I thought, yeah, we should do this. It's got to feel good. How involved the station is, you know, you started this. Now there's eight walks. And I didn't really have any big agenda, really. I just thought it would be a nice thing for the station to get involved with. Now it is mushroomed and it was called the memory walk back then. Now it's called the Walk to End Alzheimer's. The mission is very clear that we wanna end this disease. And I will tell you this, and I'm gonna be completely honest. Last year, when my husband and I were driving to the walk, I said, It's been 25 years. We've raised millions of dollars. Why don't we have a cure? But as hard as that is, and we've hosted the events together, and so people become family. When you're seeing them year after year after year and you hear their stories, you see that unfortunately sometimes the progress of the disease and people getting worse, that's hard. But we've also been able to see that there is no cure, but they're close. You've seen 25 years of progress. That's true. medications now that can help slow the progress of the disease and you know at this point you'll take anything you can that will help because you want to keep your memory for as long as you can and you're right strides are being made and it's because of events like this because the research can't happen without the money How hard has it been, over that course of time, you pointed out that you've had family members directly impacted. I have had family members and friends and co-workers that we, you know, we share. How hard is it being so committed to something that there isn't a cure for yet? Well, you know, I do have my moments, the one I just described to you, where I get frustrated because I think, you know, all these people, we all have the same mission. Why hasn't it happened yet? But they're not giving up. Nobody's giving up. We get more and more people every year to come to this walk. And it's not only the Philadelphia walk, it's all the suburbs. So if you don't live close to Philadelphia, but you're still kind of in the area, you've got a Berks County walk, you've got a Jersey Shore walk, and you can help too. And nobody's giving up. 25 years later, I can't think of a staff member, team member, family member who has not participated in some capacity. It's mutually beneficial, I really think, and some people say it's actually a selfish thing to give because it makes you feel good. So there's that. What's the, obviously the cure. What's the best case scenario? Where do you see this going? It's been 25 over the next 20. Well, I think because there are developments, it is encouraging. There are clinical trials that people are getting in that are being studied more of the brain. The brain is so complex. I think it'll happen. I don't know when. I don't know when but I really do think it'll happen and you know there's a promise garden ceremony now at every walk and each color flower everybody holds up a windmill flower and and each color represents either I'm a caregiver, I'm a patient, I lost somebody to the disease and there's one white flower and that's the one that represents the last Alzheimer's patient. So I couldn't forget this. The one we're all looking forward to holding up. Karen and Anthony Sandone first met all the way back in grade school. Truth be told, he had a crush on me in high school. After going their separate ways, they reconnected on a blind date, fell in love, and have been married for nearly 18 years. They successfully blended their families, raising six children together. But their vision for the future was suddenly derailed. We were on our back nine, we were starting to talk about our retirement, our kids were grown, we were having weddings and going away and making plans and all of that changes in an instant. During the 2020 COVID lockdown, Karen first noticed Anthony struggling to find words and finishing his sentences. If anybody knows Anthony, he's a talker. That was something that was very odd. And then as time went on, I noticed he was forgetting things after I was telling him dates, really special memories he wasn't able to remember. It took two years of doctor visits to finally uncover the cause. Anthony was diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer's at just 55 years old. I had no idea what to do. I was so lost. I didn't know anything about it. Couples or families are in the middle of their careers, their life raising children, and then they're hit with this terminal disease without any game plan. Now, at 58, Anthony has experienced a rapid progression of the disease. His ability to communicate has severely declined. For Karen, the emotional toll is compounded by a massive financial strain, forcing her to continue working full-time to afford his care. His care is $10,000 to $12,000 a month, and it's not covered, so... That's one of the other big areas that people have to deal with at my age or younger. How do I take care of my loved one? And it's a really difficult financial decision. Karen reached out to the Alzheimer's Association and created a social media presence that is reaching over 500,000 followers across several platforms, generating millions of views. Not going to miss this for the world. We are building memories. We're going to have a lot of fun together. And I put a lot of strategies in place. Anthony will have a lanyard that he wears. Karen documents the reality of the disease and shares caregiver tips. They're the only ones who understand. You can listen to my story and have empathy. My family can listen and have empathy and they're here. But unless you're in this every day, 24 seven, it's really difficult to comprehend because you're not just watching the decline of your love, your loved one, you're also emotionally dealing with the stress of everything it leaves for you and its path. Karen has transformed her grief into advocacy. She helped establish a national support group called Surviving the Now, alongside three other women facing the same reality. Her family also launched the Sandone Strong Foundation, which has raised over $100,000 for the Alzheimer's Association. I need an outlet, and believe it or not, working and talking to other caregivers helps me because I'm helping them. So it's kind of part of my life anyway. You can't get away from Alzheimer's when you're a caregiver. You just can't. I have to keep myself busy and really do some good work so that in the future I hope there is a better resource for people like me. Karen relies on nurses during the workday and family members step in to help during the week. Yeah. She uses a wall of family photographs to help Anthony practice the names of their children and grandchildren. He's very, very in tune with his grandbabies. Through it all, their Labradoodle Nova stays right by Anthony's side. Right, Nova? To provide quiet comfort. Despite the profound losses that come with an early onset diagnosis, Karen refused to stop building memories. Anthony recently walked his daughter down the aisle and shared the father-daughter dance at her wedding. Karen meets Anthony where he is each day, advocating for a cure, leaning on her community, and holding on to the love that Alzheimer's can never take away. The FDA just approved a blood test for diagnosing Alzheimer's that may allow doctors to determine if a patient is a good candidate for some of the medications that we're now seeing that can slow the disease progression. So joining us right now is Dr. Jim Ellison, the co-director of the Comprehensive Alzheimer's Disease Center at Jefferson. We've got a hundred drugs that are in the works right now that they're trying to develop. Let's first start with how you can even figure out if you have it, when you have some early symptoms. Well, the earliest signs of Alzheimer's disease can present in a variety of different ways. The most typical presentation is difficulty with what's called episodic memory, which is memory of recent events. In addition to that, people can have trouble with language. For example, finding the right word or recognition. Or they can be more easily distractible, or they can have trouble finding their way in unfamiliar places. So all of these kinds of presentations are possible. How do you know? Because I think a lot of people say, oh, sometimes I just forget things. And how do you know whether this is just me simple forgetting something versus this could be something bigger? Well, an important idea about Alzheimer's disease is that the disease is not the same as the dementia. Alzheimer's disease is a pathological change that takes place in the brain that involves the death of brain cells by the accumulation of abnormal proteins, amyloid and tau. This takes place over the course of several decades and during the first 10 or 20 years it's probably asymptomatic for most people. So one could detect the accumulation of the abnormal protein during that period of time, but the symptoms develop later, and at that point, that's the best time to look for detecting it. The three blood tests that are now approved on the market out there, what are those and what can you determine? Well, let me say a word about why it's important to have blood tests, because for years we've had... We've had radiological examinations, and we've had lumbar puncture and examinations of cerebral spinal fluid, and those detect the signs of Alzheimer's as well. But the advantage of the blood test is that they're less expensive, they're more accessible, and they don't require a long wait to get an appointment or a special facility to administer the test. So it makes things much more accessible. What the blood tests look for is evidence of accumulation of the abnormal protein that's thought to cause Alzheimer's. When should you go in to get that blood test? Well, naturally everybody wants to know if they're at risk. Right. So a lot of people that we might characterize as, you know, worried well, and they may be worried for a good reason if they've had people in their family, for example, who've suffered from Alzheimer's disease, A lot of people are requesting the test, but if you take the test too early before you have symptoms, there's a higher risk of false positive, which means a test that shows a positive result even though the person doesn't have the disease, and that can be a devastating piece of wrong information for a person to cope with. So we recommend that people get the test under appropriate health care professional guidance. Well, we do have some new medicines that are on the market right now that are really helpful with the progression of the disease. What are those? Well, there are two new medicines that have been approved by the FDA in the last couple years. One is called Leqembi and the other is called Kisunla. They both work in roughly the same way by reducing amyloid and tau proteins in the brain. They're both very very effective at reducing amyloid and tau in the brain but that's not something that's so terribly new because we've had medicines that do that for a long time. What's different about these medicines is that they also slow down clinical decline and they do that as much as almost 30 percent and give a person extra time in the stage of mild cognitive impairment before they progress on to dementia. You said something when we were talking in commercial break that I want to close out with. I thought it was really good that you said that everyone at this point should be living as if they have a chance of getting Alzheimer's. Why is that? Well, Alzheimer's disease affects 10 to 15 percent of older adults. And so we should all live the healthy lifestyle. What's good for the brain and prevents Alzheimer's also is good for the heart and the rest of the body as well and helps with wellness and longevity. So it's important to pay attention to disease management like high blood pressure, hyperlipidemia, sleep apnea, diabetes. Sleep helps clear amyloid from the brain and then it's important to remain involved with meaningful activities, have a sense of purpose and engagement with other people. And to challenge your mind by doing things that are intellectually demanding and to have physical exercise and a good diet. I just had a shingle shot. I saw some studies that say that that's one of those things that's helpful too. That's getting a lot of buzz lately. And before we talk about shingles for Alzheimer's, shingles vaccine, let's talk about shingles vaccine for shingles. We're out of time. We could talk all day, Dr. Pope. Thank you so much. We do appreciate it, though. So it can help? Yeah, there's some evidence that it can reduce the likelihood of developing Alzheimer's dementia. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate it. Dr. Allison, we'll be right back. We'll be right back. The discussion on Good Day showed you some of the ways that we are advancing through technology and medicine. But there are still more. They're happening every day. Breakthrough 15 years in the making. A collaborative international study led by researchers here at Banner Health have now discovered a way to detect Alzheimer's disease using a routine blood draw. Dr. Nicholas Ashton says the findings improve a previously used blood test, reducing the possibility of false positive results. It's a more accurate test. More accurate tests means that people are going to get a more accurate diagnosis and they're going to get treated earlier. The refined blood test measures for the brain-derived protein phosphorylated tau-217, or p-tau-217, which is linked to Alzheimer's disease. Currently, Alzheimer's diagnoses mostly come from a PET brain scan, which isn't widely accessible. It's an expensive technique, it's infrequent to get it, and actually there's a huge delay. Nobody wants to wait six. 12 months to say that they potentially have Alzheimer's disease. Worse, that it wasn't Alzheimer's disease and maybe we could have done something about it. While the cost of the refined blood test is still being determined, Dr. Ashton says it will still be a fraction of the cost of the brain scan, with results coming back within weeks instead of months. What the blood test does, it does exactly the same thing, but it does it much, much faster, much, much cheaper. Hopeful this new diagnostic tool can lead to early detection. That's critically important because That means we can treat people more effectively, we can manage their symptoms more effectively, knowing whether it's Alzheimer's disease or not. And improved quality of life for those living with the disease. Annalisa Pardo, Fox News. Right now researchers are linking menopause and Alzheimer's. Nearly two-thirds of people living with Alzheimer's are women. And it's been long thought that more women get Alzheimer's than men because they live longer. But Roberta Diaz-Brenton says her research shows that's not the case. It turns out it just starts earlier for women in menopause. It's because women are going through this midlife transition where the ability to Transport glucose into the brain and then convert that glucose into energy can decline. Brinton says estrogen promotes the brain's ability to use glucose as its primary fuel by about 20 to 25 percent. But as estrogen declines a starvation response is activated and this period could mark when the risk for Alzheimer's begins for women. But Brinton says there are things both men and women can do in midlife to reduce their risk for Alzheimer's. The first is sustained glucose metabolism. So if a person is diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, we now know that those type 2 diabetes medications actually reduce the risk in both women and men. And according to the Alzheimer's Association, making key lifestyle changes can help reduce a person's risk for the disease, like exercising, maintaining social connections, and heart-healthy eating. I'm Marianne Rafferty, Fox News. We know that every time we do these specials, it can be hard, it can be challenging, and the stories may be painful to watch, but they also come with the hope that one day, one day soon, while working with the Alzheimer's Association, we will find the cure. Once again, I'm Bill Anderson. Thank you so much for watching, and have a good one.