Now and future: Strategies for diagnosis, prevention and therapies for Alzheimer's disease

Abstract

After a number of failed drug studies on Alzheimer's disease (AD) over the past decade, clinical trials of AD started to show encouraging results and were approved or pending approval for clinical use. However, controversies on the clinically meaningful benefits and risks of brain edema and microhemorrhages have reminded us to think further about monitoring treatment and developing new drug targets. The goal of this review is to find insights from clinical trials that aimed at two key pathological features of AD, i.e., amyloid-β (Aβ) and tau protein, and to explore other targets such as anti-inflammation in AD. The complex pathophysiology of AD may require combination therapies rather than monotherapy. Throughout the course of AD, multiple pathways are disrupted, presenting a multitude of possible therapeutic targets for designing prevention and intervention for AD.

Keywords: Alzheimer’s disease; Amyloid; Biomarker; Dementia; Tau; Treatment.