治愈阿尔茨海默病的方法

Will there ever be a cure for Alzheimer’s10）？ 究竟有没有治愈阿尔茨海默病的方法？
　　“I am not sure if there will be a cure， per se， but I am very hopeful that there will be a successful disease-modifying therapy for Alzheimer’s disease within the next decade. We have now started prevention trials that are testing biological interventions even before people show clinical symptoms of the disease. And we don’t have to cure Alzheimer’s—we just need to delay dementia11） by five to 10 years. Estimates show that a five-year delay in the terrible and expensive dementia stage of the disease would reduce Medicare12） dementia costs by nearly 50 percent. Most important， that would mean that many older people could die while out ballroom dancing rather than in nursing homes.”
　　—Reisa Sperling， professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School

“我不确定是否会有本质上治愈的方法，但我非常希望未来十年会有能有效改善阿尔茨海默病的疗法。现在，我们已经展开了预防试验，甚至在人们出现临床症状之前进行生物学干预。而且，我们不需要治愈阿尔茨海默病——我们只需要把失智症延缓五到十年。据估计，把可怕并且花费昂贵的失智期延缓五年，就能减少联邦医保中有关失智症50%的费用。最重要的是，这就意味着更多的老人可能在舞厅跳舞时逝去，而不是在疗养院里去世。”
　　——哈佛大学医学院神经学教授雷萨·斯珀林