Hopes fulfilled for a disease-modifying treatment for Alzheimer’s disease!
- Lisa Koski
- Nov 11
- 2 min read
Note: This is Part 1 of a 3-part series of posts on the relevance of neuropsychological assessment in the context of lecanemab, a newly approved Alzheimer’s treatment.
Part 1: What is lecanemab and what does it do?
Health Canada recently approved lecanemab, a new treatment for Alzheimer’s disease. Lecanemab is also known by its brandname, Leqembi. This is exciting news because lecanemab is the first disease-modifying treatment approved in Canada for Alzheimer’s disease. Disease-modifying means that lecanemab not only slows cognitive decline but also alters the disease itself, by attacking the amyloid plaques in the brain that cause Alzheimer’s. Other treatments currently in use slow the progression of cognitive impairment but have not been shown to affect the underlying disease.
Treatment with lecanemab involves intravenous injections of the drug every two weeks in a clinic setting. Clinical research showed that patients treated with lecanemab showed 27% less cognitive decline than those taking placebo.
Along with hope for the many people affected by the disease, come many questions, first among them: Will lecanemab help me? How does it work? Am I eligible to take it? Is it available now?
Answers to many of these questions can be found on the Alzheimer’s Society website:
Technical details on the science behind lecanemab, and the practical hurdles involved in accessing treatment, can be read here in this review paper by the Canadian Consortium on Neurodegeneration in Aging Investigators:
Getting a formal diagnosis is the first step to determining eligibility for lecanemab. For more information on this process, see Part 2 in this series:
Part 2: Am I eligible to take lecanemab? How can a neuropsychologist help to answer this question?
Part 3: What else do I need to know about eligibility and how to access treatment?
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