Deep brain stimulation used to slow down Alzheimer’s associated decline

Alzheimer’s disease is an incurable form of degenerative dementia that becomes progressively disabling with loss of memory, cognition and worsening behavioural function, in addition to a gradual loss of independent functioning.

Whilst most treatments for Alzheimer’s disease focus on improving memory, researchers at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center aimed their focus at slowing the decline of cognitive and daily functional abilities by surgically implanting electrical wires into the frontal lobes of the brains of patients with the disease.

According to OSU, this is the first use of DBS in Alzheimer's disease in a behavioural regulation brain region target. Findings of the study are published online in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.

“We have many memory aides, tools and pharmaceutical treatments to help Alzheimer’s patients with memory, but we don’t have anything to help with improving their judgments, making good decisions, or increasing their ability to selectively focus attention on the task at hand and avoid distractions. These skills are necessary in performing daily tasks,” said Dr Douglas Scharre, co-author of the study and director of the Division of Cognitive Neurology at Ohio State’s Wexner Medical Center’s Neurological Institute.