Drugs to help halt the advance of Alzheimer’s disease could be available within a decade, a leading neuroscientist has predicted. Speaking at the Royal Society in London, Professor John Hardy, of University College London, said that pharmaceutical companies are trialling new drugs designed to slow the disease by fighting the build-up in the brain of amyloid plaques, which stop cells from communicating with each other. Results of these trials are expected in the next 18 months. “If they are successful, it tells us immediately we are on the right road and [this could] lead to a massive investment by industry to develop drugs that target amyloid in other ways,” he explained.

Hardy suggested that in about ten years, people with Alzheimer’s might be prescribed a “cocktail” of drugs to slow the onset of symptoms. However, other experts warned that, in their current forms, these could be too expensive to be made available to millions who are likely to have developed Alzheimer’s by 2025. Since 1980, there has been a 20% drop in dementia incidence, possibly as a result of people taking action to reduce their cholesterol levels. But lifestyle changes won’t be able to prevent the majority of cases, so new treatments are vital.

This is a most distressing disease, and horribly common. I have personal experience of it in my family, and one can’t help wondering, when one forgets a name or a word, “Is it happening to me?” It is one thing having to die – we all have to do that – but we should be able to die with grace and dignity.