By 2050, as our population ages, 15 million Americans will suffer from Alzheimer's disease – triple today's number. There is no cure for Alzheimer's, but several treatments can help alleviate its symptoms, and many research projects aim to understand the disease better and find a way to fight it. In this QUEST story, we visited researchers at San Francisco's Gladstone Institutes, who are looking for a gene that may hold the key to a cure.
There are many others also working in the field. The Alzheimer's Association has information about current treatments available. The National Institute on Aging gives a good overview of what avenues of research are being pursued to better diagnose the disease and find a cure. A team of health professionals at the UC Davis Alzheimer's Disease Center can provide a diagnostic work-up, as well as enroll patients in several ongoing clinical trials.