Upstate Medical University’s Geriatrics department welcomed 21 clinical trial participants and their partners to campus Wednesday to thank them for their participation in trials aimed at unlocking better treatments for cognitive diseases.

In the first event of its kind, participants were welcomed with a buffet of snacks, goody bags and a basket raffle before presentations by Geriatrics Chair Sharon Brangman, MD, manager Colleen Dillenbeck and social worker Allie Jardin. Carol Balmer, study partner to her husband, Jim, also spoke about their participation in a trial since Jim’s diagnosis of mild cognitive dysfunction.

The department started with just two clinical trials and currently is running seven involving various treatments for Alzheimer’s. Before Upstate started its own trials, participants would have to travel to other big cities to participate.

Dillenbeck said the event was organized because study participants give so much in order to be in these studies. Visits are several hours long, often involve getting various scans at different locations. The memory and cognition tests can be taxing. One study, the Trailblazer study, has been going on for more than two years, and patients and partners come in every four weeks. That study is looking at the efficacy of Donanemab, a monoclonal antibody, in early Alzheimer’s.

“These patients and partners join these studies and give their time knowing that it may not help them or their loved one, but that it may help someone in the future with this devastating disease,” Dillenbeck said. “They are helping us find better treatments and hopefully someday a cure.”

Participants were surveyed and 81 percent said they participate to help others by helping find cures, like the Balmers, retired pharmacists who were both involved in research trials as professionals.

“Now to be on the other side of things has been quite an eye-opener,” Carol Balmer said. “From the very beginning when Jim was diagnosed, he was determined to be part of research studies.  With our background, we knew the only way to make any progress is on the backs of people who have challenging diseases. It seems we are just getting to the spot in cognitive research where breakthroughs are starting to happen. Who knows whose life we will have been able to help.”

Brangman, who directs Upstate's Center for Excellence for Alzheimer’s Disease, said Alzheimer’s and all of the dementias are one of the most complicated things to pull apart because so many individual factors come into play. She said cocktail-like treatments, such as those used in HIV and certain cancers, may be the best approach.

“The brain is our final frontier,” said Brangman, a SUNY Distinguished Service Professor. “Science has done a lot with the heart and other parts of the body, and the brain is the final frontier. It is going to be hard to find one thing that makes this disease better. We are starting to learn it is going to be a layered process.”

She said Upstate aims to be involved in a wide variety of studies at different points in the disease.

“We are working hard to try to crack this horrible disease,” Brangman told those in attendance. “It takes a village to get to the bottom of it. This could not happen without you as the active participants and the caregivers who are helping carry this load. We can’t thank you enough for participating.”

 

Caption: SUNY Distinguished Professor Sharon Brangman, MD, chair of the Department of Geriatrics, thanks clinical trial participants and their partners, many of whom are enrolled in drug trials to find treatments or cures for cognitive diseases, like Alzheimer's, during a a special reception, held this week.