
New Alzheimer’s Treatment Improves Patients’ Cognitive Abilities - unitedacademics
https://www.ua-magazine.com/56081-2/
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WhitneyLand
At best this is poor journalism, at worst it's some kind of paid placement.

They make a claim that it's safe to use concurrently with medication, refer to
company employees as "according to the experts". The say it's a clear
breakthrough and safe.

Here is a proper article on the result, explaining the good and the bad, for
example that there was no benefit for patients with moderate disease:

[http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/873886](http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/873886)

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jonnathanson
This article tickles my spidey sense. It reads like a sponsored story, or at
the very least, an article written quickly and uncritically by someone who
just took NeuroAD's press release and talking points at face value.

To wit, the article ends on this note: "It is clear that a new clinical
solution for Alzheimer’s is needed and Neuronix’s NeuroAD treatment is not
only a safe option, but a breakthrough in the treatment of AD."

Really? That's quite a bold statement to make, given that FDA review isn't
complete, and we have no longitudinal outcomes to analyze.

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jack9
NeuroAD - [https://neuronewsinternational.com/neuronix-submits-
neuroad-...](https://neuronewsinternational.com/neuronix-submits-neuroad-
system-for-fda-clearance/)

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albertTJames
As all wise neuroscientists would say after reading meta-analysis about rTMS:
don’t count your chickens before they’re hatched

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drcross
This article annoys me because TMS is a general treatment, there's no mention
in the article of it being particularly suitable for Alzheimers or an involved
study of it's use in Alzheimers. The entire premise of TMS lacks the precision
of proper medicine at this early stage. It can be reduced to (this is honestly
accurate) the following- "lets put a 9 volt charge across the brain somewhere
and see what happens". People are getting results but if they are repeatable
and then useful is going to be an entirely different matter. There's no
evidence that this treatment does anything for plaque deposits.

It's 2017 and we are talking about putting men on Mars but at the same time we
know this brain plaque is killing or will kill millions of us in the future
but we don't have a way to remove it! Can't we build microscopic pipe cleaners
at least!? It's infuriating!

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fsiefken
On the company's website it says: "According to a company release, the study
involved 131 patients at nine medical centres in the USA and one in Israel.
The study evaluated the safety and efficacy of the neuroAD Therapy System in
comparison to placebo, following six weeks of treatment and six weeks of
follow-up, using the cognitive and behavioural standard scales for the
evaluation of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. The study’s positive outcomes
confirm and extend the results of former studies conducted across the world
with the neuroAD Therapy System. The detailed results of the study will be
presented at the International Conference on Clinical Trials for Alzheimer’s
Disease (CTAD; 8–10 December, San Diego, USA)."

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hprotagonist
"might" is the operative word missing from this and every other press release
that admits that clinical trials are not yet finished.

or in this case, even begun.

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hackuser
The trials were completed. See:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13347086](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13347086)

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fdsaaf
It angers me that a drug yielding cognitive improvement of X in an Alzheimer's
patient is progress, but the same drug yielding the an improvement of X in a
healthy patient is abuse. There should be no stigma against improving
ourselves.

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WhitneyLand
How is it illegal/abuse when you can pay to have similar therapy already or
even buy a cheap kit on the internet to hook your brain up to?

I don't think anyone is holding back progress. The minute it becomes clear
there's cognitive improvement for healthy people the demand and usage will
make anabolic steroid use seem tiny in comparison.

~~~
fdsaaf
Then why is Modafinil still a controlled subtance? What about Adderall? They
both greatly improve cognitive performance in healthy people, and they _are_
widely used by healthy people, but we all do this ridiculous dance where we
pretend that we're only using these drugs to treat medical conditions.

