What Are Biomedical Engineers Doing at the Moment for Alzheimers Disease?
Sunday, February 7th, 2010 at
2:05 pm
Amery l asked:
is there any current technology for alzheimers disease? or a stroke
Tagged with: Alzheimer's Disease • Biomedical Engineers • Current Technology
Filed under: Alzheimers
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Alzheimers Disease
One area of clinical research is focused on treating the underlying disease pathology. Reduction of amyloid beta levels is a common target of compounds under investigation. Immunotherapy or vaccination for the amyloid protein is one treatment modality under study. Unlike preventative vaccination, the putative therapy would be used to treat people already diagnosed. It is based upon the concept of training the immune system to recognise, attack, and reverse deposition of amyloid, thereby altering the course of the disease. An example of such a vaccine under investigation was ACC-001, although the trials were suspended in 2008. Another similar agent is bapineuzumab, an antibody designed as identical to the naturally induced anti-amyloid antibody. Other approaches are neuroprotective agents, such as AL-108, and metal-protein interaction attenuation agents, such as PBT2. A TNFα receptor fusion protein, etanercept has also showed encouraging results. Also, in 2008, two separate clinical trials showed positive results in modifying the course of disease in mild to moderate AD with methylthioninium chloride, a drug that inhibits tau aggregation and dimebon, an antihistamine.
Not much device technology is being applied to Alzheimer’s. It is thought to be largely a biochemical disease. Stroke is most often due to a blood clot blocking blood flow in the brain. It that area (ischemic stroke), there is much biomedical technology being developed. check out: