Newshour Extra

A new drug, Donanemab, has been hailed as a turning point in the fight against Alzheimer's after a global trial confirms it slows cognitive decline. One trial was shown to have “significantly slowed” the progression of the disease—by 35%. Earlier this year, Lecanemab, the first drug to slow the destruction of the brain in Alzheimer's, received regulatory approval in America. Lecanemab was shown to slow the rate of cognitive decline by 27% in an 18 month study involving participants in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Although not a cure, charities say the results in the journal JAMA mark a new era where Alzheimer's can be treated. The drug works in Alzheimer's disease, not in other types of dementia, such as vascular dementia. But the new drugs are not risk-free treatments. Brain swelling was a common side-effect in up to a third of patients in the Donanemab trial. The World Health Organisation forecasts more than 150m people around the world will be living with dementia by 2050. Until recently, we’v