$1M grant will help Manhasset research center advance Alzheimer's treatments

The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America has provided a grant of close to $1 million for a study related to developing new treatments for behaviors associated with dementia — including hallucinations, delusions and aggression — that will be conducted at the Litwin-Zucker Research Center in Manhasset.

In celebrating its 20th anniversary, The Alzheimer’s Foundation of America, a Manhattan-based nonprofit, announced earlier this month it would fund a new five-year study, conducted at the Litwin-Zucker Research Center at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research in Manhasset, to look further into developing treatments for some of the disease's most challenging behavior.

"There’s no better way to begin AFA’s 20th anniversary year than by making this investment in hope," Alzheimer’s Foundation of America founder Bert E. Brodsky said in a statement. "Finding new ways to treat these symptoms would have an enormous impact on safety and quality of life — both for people living with dementia and their caregivers."

Dr. Jeremy Koppel, co-director of the Litwin-Zucker Research Center, is the principal investigator on the new trials being funded by the grant. He said he has researched the disease for more than a decade. The goal, he said, is to develop a treatment for psychosis and Alzheimer’s that makes people better without the side effects and the incidence of mortality that may come from prescription drugs.

"The Alzheimer’s Foundation recognized how common this was and they know from the people they take care of what a problem it is, and they want a solution for it," Koppel said. "That’s why the funding is so critical. We couldn’t have gotten this funding any other way."

Koppel, who is also geriatric psychiatrist at the Zucker Hillside Hospital in Glen Oaks, said antipsychotic drugs, which are generally prescribed to treat schizophrenia, are often used to treat psychosis in Alzheimer’s as well. Some prescription drugs put patients at risk for stroke and sudden death, Koppel added.

The new study builds on previous research, which found a link between the buildup of tau protein inside brain cells and psychosis in Alzheimer’s patients.

"We think that protein may be partially responsible for this awful syndrome in Alzheimer's patients and maybe even with people with brain injury, that may make them psychotic as well," Koppel said.

He said researchers will use sophisticated neuroimaging techniques to see tau buildup in the brains of living people. The study will look into three types of participants — those with both Alzheimer’s and psychosis, those with Alzheimer’s but no psychosis, and healthy elderly people between the ages of 65 and 85.

"Once we can make a map of where this is we can start to think about intervention studies using tau reduction therapies to prevent or treat it," Koppel said. The study will involve recruiting 90 participants who will be assessed and eventually undergo tau imagining to see buildup of the protein in the brain.

David German, 68, of Manhattan, was a caregiver for his late wife, Linda, who died from Alzheimer’s in November. She was 70. When she was 62, she was diagnosed with the disease and eventually took prescription drugs to ease her psychosis, her husband said. German, who is formerly of Water Mill, said the best thing a person can have when they get the diagnosis is hope. He noted that Koppel’s new study gives him just that — hope for people with Alzheimer’s.

"If you could get rid of some of this anger and agitation, I think it would help both the person with Alzheimer’s and the caregiver," German said. "I am very much in favor of clinical trials. There’s nothing like hope."