Why in News?

• The recent announcement of China that a new drug meant to potentially treat Alzheimer’s disease, will be available to Chinese patients shortly.
• The drug has been named as GV-971 or “Oligomannate”. It is a seaweed-based drug which is administered orally.

 About Alzheimer’s Disease:

• It is a progressive brain disorder that typically affects people older than 65. When it affects younger individuals, it is considered early onset.
• The disease destroys brain cells and nerves, and disrupts the message-carrying neurotransmitters.Eventually, a person with Alzheimer’s loses the ability to perform day-to-day activities.

Alzheimer’s Versus Dementia:

• Dementia is an umbrella term for a range of conditions that involve a loss of cognitive functioning.Alzheimer’s is the most common type of dementia. It involves plaques and tangles forming in the brain. Symptoms start gradually and are most likely to include a decline in cognitive function and language ability.Other types of dementia include Huntington’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. People can have more than one type of dementia.
• Symptoms:
• Reduced ability to take in and remember new information
• Impairments to reasoning, complex tasking, and exercising judgment
• Impaired visuospatial abilities that are not, for example, due to eye sight problems.
• Impaired speaking, reading and writing Changes in personality and behaviour.
• The progression of Alzheimer’s can be broken down into three Main Stages:
  • Preclinical, before symptoms appear
  • Mild cognitive impairment, when symptoms are mild
  • Dementia

 Treatment:

• There is No Cure for Alzheimer’s, because its exact causes are not known. Most drugs being developed try to slow down or stop the progression of the disease.
• There is a degree of consensus in the scientific community that Alzheimer’s involves two proteins, called beta amyloids and tau. When levels of either protein reach abnormal levels in the brain, it leads to the formation of plaque, which gets deposited between neurons, damaging and disrupting nerve cells. Most existing drugs for Alzheimer’s try to target these proteins to manage some of the symptoms of Alzheimer’s.