Hard fight ahead
Experts on Alzheimer’s disease expressed hope of rapid progress against the condition Friday (July 22) even as they acknowledged that there’s little medical science can do today to help patients. The panel, which appeared online in a presentation of The Forum at Harvard School of Public Health, also discussed a new Harvard School of Public Health and Alzheimer’s Europe survey showing Alzheimer’s to be the number two health fear — behind cancer — in four countries. The survey, led by Robert Blendon, professor of health policy and political analysis, also showed that the vast majority of respondents would want to know they had the disease even though there is nothing physicians can do to treat it. Blendon, who appeared at the event with Adrian Ivinson, founding director of the Harvard NeuroDiscovery Center, and Matthew Baumgart, senior director of government affairs for the Alzheimer’s Association, said the survey also showed that most people...