ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
Drugs can't stop Alzheimer's disease yet, but sometimes they can slow it down.
MYRA SOLANO GARCIA: Things have just plateaued. I mean, I call it a plateau because I'm doing pretty well.
SHAPIRO: NPR's Jon Hamilton reports on one woman's experience with a new drug that removes sticky plaques from the brain.
JON HAMILTON, BYLINE: Myra Solano Garcia is 66 and has been living with Alzheimer's for more than a decade.
SOLANO GARCIA: I don't do well with numbers. I have difficulty remembering names. My poor husband, I forget what he tells me (laughter).
HAMILTON: But there's still a lot that Solano Garcia can do around her home in Upland, California.
SOLANO GARCIA: I can drive. I can take care of the house. I can cook.
HAMILTON: And she can take part in an activity that has played a central role in her life.
SOLANO GARCIA: (Singing in non-English language).
HAMILTON: One reason may be the drug known generically as donanemab and marketed under the name Kisunla. It's one of two new drugs that can clear the brain of sticky amyloid plaques, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer's. Solano Garcia grew up in New Jersey as part of a Cuban American family with lots of singers.
SOLANO GARCIA: I played Maria in "West Side Story" in summer stock. I performed at Carnegie Hall and Fisher Hall.
HAMILTON: Later, she ran fundraising campaigns for colleges and universities and moved to California. It was in her early 50s that Solano Garcia began noticing problems with her memory. The turning point came during COVID when she started a new job.
SOLANO GARCIA: Three months in, I realized I couldn't do the work. I couldn't remember the people's names. I couldn't remember how to do the technology. The technology has been very difficult for me.
HAMILTON: So she went to a neuropsychiatrist.
SOLANO GARCIA: She tested me for 8 hours. And at the end of the day, she said, you have Alzheimer's disease.
HAMILTON: The doctor also referred her to the University of Southern California, which was part of a large study of donanemab.
SOLANO GARCIA: They asked, would you like to be part of the trial? And I said, you bet I would.
HAMILTON: Solano Garcia began going in for monthly infusions, which she didn't mind, and mental tests, which she found frustrating.
SOLANO GARCIA: Drawing some pictures that don't make any sense. (Laughter) That wasn't good. Counting numbers backwards. That didn't work too well, either (laughter).
HAMILTON: The drug didn't restore her memory, but after four years of treatment, she wasn't getting worse, at least not very quickly. So was the drug working? Not necessarily, says Dr. Lon Schneider, who directs the Alzheimer center at USC.
LON SCHNEIDER: We don't know that. And we don't have the ability to say because you've taken the medication, you haven't declined.
HAMILTON: Schneider says what is clear is that after a year or more on Kisunla, the beta-amyloid plaques in a patient's brain are usually down to normal levels. He says that's led to a new approach with this drug, which was approved in 2024.
SCHNEIDER: Treat until plaques are down to normal and then stop and perhaps retreat if plaques begin to grow back.
HAMILTON: Schneider says at USC, doctors have a weekly meeting to discuss, among other things, which patients are candidates to stop taking Kisunla. Solano Garcia says she's one of those patients.
SOLANO GARCIA: But I'm almost done with the infusions. So, you know, it's really exciting.
HAMILTON: But hardly a cure. Solano Garcia remains unable to return to her fundraising career, and she has lost much of her command of the piano.
(PIANO PLAYING)
HAMILTON: So she maintains her house, volunteers with the Alzheimer's Association, and every week, she visits a local memory care unit to sing.
SOLANO GARCIA: We start out with "The Star-Spangled Banner." And we do the Yankee songs and some movie songs.
HAMILTON: Solano Garcia says she's learned a lot from the residents of the unit, most of whom have advanced Alzheimer's.
SOLANO GARCIA: It's humbling because they used to know all of this music. And I know that as time goes, I'll be just like them.
HAMILTON: She hopes Kisunla can postpone that day.
Jon Hamilton, NPR News.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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