Why So Much of What We Know About Dementia Has Changed

I, you know, I, I, um, I'm glad we're talking about Alzheimer's dementia.

As you know, I, I, I'm a brain guy.

I've written a book about this.

But I think we are really at this, this tipping point, as, as we're gonna hear from Robert, in terms of what is happening with potential therapies for, for Alzheimer's dementia.

For a long time, it seemed like there was nothing.

It was called the valley of death for researchers who were even thinking about starting to look into Alzheimer's disease.

But that's changing.

Yeah, I think you were, uh, as usual, out ahead of this with your book and got people started thinking about this, but I feel like every week, every month has had some sort of major development in the Alzheimer's space, uh, recently with new blood tests and new therapies-

Yeah

... and things going on.

I don't know what has brought this about right in this moment, but it really feels like this is a now kind of story.

You know, part, part of the reason I got into medicine was because of Alzheimer's dementia.

You know, my, my, um, grandfather, my mom's father, developed this when I was 12 or 13 years old, and it was, it was so jarring in a way because people always talk about the memory loss and things like that that are very associated with, with dementia.

I was thinking about going to medicine at the time.

I thought about cardiac surgery.

I thought about being a cancer doc.

All those things, um, I, I felt were very, very tangible.

Like, there obviously, you, no one wants cancer, no one wants heart disease, but you sort of understood it.

When it came to brain things, I think in part, m- some of the reason I was interested in this is because it was so inexplicable.

You always seem to pick the hardest problems-

Well

... to try and solve.

[laughs]

I felt, I felt like there was good job security in a field that we didn't fully understand yet.

[laughs]