Hope For Alzheimer’s Disease
Saint Mary’s physician Kevin T. Foley, M.D., F.A.C.P.
looks at Alzheimer’s disease from all angles. On one
hand, as the medical director for the Alzheimer’s Disease
and Memory Disorders Program at Saint Mary’s, Dr. Foley
is fully aware that Alzheimer’s disease is a devastating
condition. At the same time, he is boldly optimistic about
the future of treatment for Alzheimer’s.
“If you spend any time with people with Alzheimer’s
disease, you really know how tragic this is,” says Dr.
Foley. “People don’t want to be told that they
have Alzheimer’s disease. There’s such a stigma
associated with the diagnosis, and they often believe that
little can be done for them. Denial prevents others from receiving
a prompt assessment, and the delay that ensues can result
in a less favorable prognosis. Also, family members who do
not seek out advice and support can easily become overwhelmed
with their responsibilities as caregivers.”
A unique center is born in Grand Rapids
When he arrived in Grand Rapids in 2000, Dr. Foley immediately
saw how the needs of Alzheimer’s patients were not being
met effectively. “Having been the medical director at
another memory center up north, I was a little surprised to
find that there were no systems in place for dealing with
memory disorders in this area,” says Foley.
Many times, care for Alzheimer’s disease is disjointed,
says Foley. A neurologist may diagnose the condition, write
a prescription, and then turn the patient over to a primary
care physician who may not know the most effective way to
work with an Alzheimer’s patient over the long-term.
“People with this condition like to know that there’s
an expert out there for them,” says Foley. “They
like to know that somebody is really keeping an eye on it
for them, and that’s what we do. We encourage people
to partner with us over the long-term.”
When Dr. Foley says “long-term,” he means it
in the fullest sense. “We will follow them from the
point of symptom presentation and diagnosis, to the time the
disease has run its course, if that’s what they want,”
he insists. “We never turn people away and say, ‘You’re
done here.’”
Full-service care for Alzheimer’s
Under Dr. Foley’s leadership, the Alzheimer’s
Disease and Memory Disorders Program at Saint Mary’s
opened its doors in 2004 as West Michigan’s only full-time
center dedicated exclusively to the condition.
“It takes a passion and a commitment and a knowledge
of what’s going on in order to provide excellent service,”
says Foley. “We have an interdisciplinary team, so that
we can seamlessly move patients from one expert to another,
depending on what their needs are. We are truly a comprehensive
program. There aren’t too many others like ours.”
The program uses the combined skills of a geriatrician, neuropsychologist,
nurse, social worker, pharmacist and other support services
– including a Spanish language interpreter and Alzheimer’s
Association volunteers. And Dr. Foley and his staff put a
premium on information.
“We like to educate patients so that they know what
this disease is about, so that their fears can be reduced,”
says Dr. Foley. “Our primary focus is to empower the
patient and the caregiver so that they know what’s ahead
of them, and how to handle it.”
Helping patients and their families
Dr. Foley and his staff work closely with families, since
the disease has such a profound impact on everyone related
to the patient.
“Defenses tend to create problems,” he says.
“You see denial. People think, ‘No, they’ll
live forever, we don’t need to put them into a nursing
home.’ We give them reality checks along the way and
let them know what they need to plan for. It can be devastating
if they’re not ready, and not prepared. We tell them
what’s going to make a difference as the disease progresses.
“This is not a condition that you can learn on the
job, and hope that you can just do it on your own,”
Foley continues. “Not to mention that the caregivers
oftentimes don’t set realistic goals for themselves
as far as what they think they can handle.”
The spouses and children of Alzheimer’s patients are
often going through their own grueling, tragic experience
as they attempt to deal with the condition’s impact.
“I see so many burned-out caregivers,” Foley
says. “They’ll tell me, ‘I made a promise
to my wife I’d never put her in a nursing home, no matter
what.’ But these caregivers have no clue, when they
get into this, what they’re up against. We’re
here to help them manage that.”
Are we close to a cure for Alzheimer’s?
Although Foley keeps both feet firmly planted in reality,
he sees several bright spots on the horizon. For example,
Alzheimer’s research has come a long way in the past
10 years.
“The public cannot imagine how much success we’ve
had in understanding this disease,” he says. “There
are exceptional researchers getting the work done to understand
the cause of the disease, even down to the minute details
of the molecular biology, and the genetics. That’s the
foundation for finding a cure.”
According to Foley, Saint Mary’s will play an active
role in Alzheimer’s research. “Our center has
also made a commitment to advance Alzheimer’s disease
research,” Foley says. “We are participating in
a National Institutes of Health-funded drug trial that will
investigate the effectiveness of a medication called valproate
in slowing disease progression.”
And how close are we to an effective treatment for Alzheimer’s
disease? Foley believes a major breakthrough is less than
three years away.
“If the research continues to be successful, we will
have remitive agents that will act to put Alzheimer’s
disease into remission. That is the home run we are waiting
for,” he says. “All the experts with whom I have
networked have all been uniform in their belief that, about
two-and-a-half years from now, we should have them. And we
also know very well what other targets we need to hit in order
to potentially cure this disease.”
Foley foresees a day in which people line up for “Alzheimer’s
shots” just as they do for flu shots. “We’re
talking about cures based on genetic therapy or gene re-arrangement.
That’s the direction we’re heading in.”
For now, though, Foley is focused on providing help and a
degree of hope for patients and caregivers as they struggle
with Alzheimer’s. He believes the new Alzheimer’s
Disease and Memory Disorders Program meets the most urgent
needs of today.
“Our timing is good, because we’re truly on the
forefront,” he says. “We’re going to have
everything in place, and then when these drugs come out, people’s
misperceptions about Alzheimer’s disease are going to
change.”
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