{"id":109278,"date":"2025-05-17T14:55:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-17T14:55:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/109278\/"},"modified":"2025-05-17T14:55:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-17T14:55:11","slug":"harborview-offers-another-new-medication-for-early-stage-alzheimers-patients-healthlink","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/109278\/","title":{"rendered":"Harborview offers another new medication for early-stage Alzheimer’s patients: HealthLink"},"content":{"rendered":"

The FDA-approved monoclonal antibody infusion known as donanemab, is showing promise to reduce cognitive decline among early-onset patients.<\/p>\n

SEATTLE \u2014 An estimated\u00a0<\/a>7.2 million Americans age 65 and older are living with Alzheimer’s disease, according to an extensive 2025 report compiled by the Alzheimer’s Association.<\/p>\n

While there is still no cure, doctors at UW Medicine are hopeful about a second new medication being offered in Seattle that could be a game changer in managing the disease.<\/p>\n

“It’s a new drug that patients with early-stage Alzheimer’s disease will have access to,” said Dr. Michael Rosenbloom<\/a>, an associate professor of neurology at UW Medicine and clinical trials director at UW’s Memory and Brain Wellness Center.<\/p>\n

He calls the FDA-approved donanemab a “milestone drug” currently offered to patients with early-onset Alzheimer’s disease.<\/p>\n

“It’s not curative, but what it does is it allows patients who are in the early stages of the disease to stay in those stages longer,” Rosenbloom said.<\/p>\n

This can buy precious time with loved ones.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“That buys roughly, you know, 7 months over an 18-month period when they’re on the drug compared to somebody who is not on the drug,” said Rosenbloom.<\/p>\n

Donanemab is a monoclonal antibody given as an infusion. The medication binds to proteins that build up as amyloid plaques in the brain. By binding to the plaque proteins, the drug’s antibodies trigger the patient’s immune system to clear those plaques known to cause Alzheimer’s.<\/p>\n

“Because they remove amyloid, but also we know that there’s a clinically significant slowing of cognitive and functional decline,” Rosenbloom noted.<\/p>\n

Donanemab works similarly to lecanemab, another medication offered at Harborview Medical Center, except the donanemab infusion is given every month, while lecanemab is given every two weeks.<\/p>\n

HealthLink\u00a0<\/a>talked with doctors at UW Medicine about lecanemab two years ago, which showed promise to reduce Alzheimer’s disease progression. Donanemab is revealing similar effectiveness, with trials showing a reduction in cognitive decline by 30 percent.<\/p>\n

Dr. Rosenbloom emphasizes the medicine is not a cure but a way to manage what he calls a chronic disease.<\/p>\n

“And there are other chronic diseases like heart failure and cancer and diabetes and hypertension, and we don’t have cures for those diseases. We have drugs that make life with these diseases more manageable. And donanemab is essentially doing that,” he said.<\/p>\n

Those interested in learning more about Donanemab should speak with their doctor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The FDA-approved monoclonal antibody infusion known as donanemab, is showing promise to reduce cognitive decline among early-onset patients.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":109279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4315],"tags":[105,4326,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-109278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-medication","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-medication","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114523755287344198","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109278","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=109278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/109279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}