Inside STAT: Alzheimer’s group sees signs of progress against a grim disease. Is it real?

A DISPLAY AT THE HEADQUARTERS OF THE ALZHEIMER'S ASSOCIATION IN CHICAGO.(KRISTEN NORMAN/ FOR STAT NEWS)

Forty years after Jerome Stone brought together researchers and other experts in the quest for a cure for Alzheimer's disease, which his wife was diagnosed with, there is still no treatment that slows the progression of the neurodegenerative condition. Nearly 6 million Americans now have the disease, and more — at the rate of one new diagnosis per day — are developing it. Yet, despite the lack of a cure, the Alzheimer's Association, the group founded by Stone, is projecting a message of hope. New therapeutic avenues are being explored, awareness of the disease — and the need to address it — has grown, as has federal funding for Alzheimer's and dementia. “We now have momentum unlike we’ve ever had in this field before,” Harry John, the organization's CEO, tells STAT's Andrew Joseph. But is the group finally justified in its positive message, when such hopes have been dashed in the past? Read more here.