Language Barrier Means Millions Of Elderly Can’t Access Alzheimer’s Trials

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October 31st, 2018

Getting people of different ethnicities and cultural backgrounds into clinical trials is not only a question of equity, doctors say. It’s also a scientific imperative to make sure candidate drugs work and are safe in a broad cross-section of pe

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My grandmother, Bella, a former nurse in the Ukraine, moved to the United States to help raise me when I was 7 months old. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease last year.

There was nothing to do to prevent her inexorable loss of memory and independence, her Massachusetts General Hospital memory specialist told our family, except to take a drug called memantine that slightly improves cognition in Alzheimer’s patients, but does not treat the underlying disease.

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