Alzheimer's and Dementia Conference
Dear colleagues, the upcoming congress will be an opportunity to come together and share ideas for initiating progress in age-related diseases. Alzheimer’s disease is a plague of our times. Hardly any other disease comes with such a burden for the afflicted individual, the proxies, and the healthcare system. While therapies targeting the pathophysiological processes with monoclonal antibodies are expensive, it will be much more expensive for societies to set these therapies aside and rely on nursing care. For ethical reasons therapies need to be developed that alleviate symptoms of this disease and help to maintain the capacity and personality of patients. Assessment of change over the course disease, however, still uses methods deployed decades ago. It is time to rethink the diagnostic process and the assessment of therapeutic efficacy. New assessment strategies will be the key to improving patients autonomy, alleviating the burden for proxies and increasing healthcare efficiency.