Alzheimer's Infrared Treatment

Seen primarily in people over the age of 60, Alzheimer's disease is the most common cause of dementia. It causes a progressive decline in cognitive function as it slowly causes brain tissue to degenerate. There is no cure, and the treatments available can only slow mental decline. As unlikely as it may seem, a helmet that looks like it was borrowed from the set of a science fiction movie may hold some hope for fighting this insidious disease.

Causes & Risk Factors

• The cause of Alzheimer's disease is not fully understood, according to the website of NIH Senior Health. Researchers think it may begin in reaction to a confluence of specific factors that affect each person differently. Of those risk factors, age is the most obvious. NIH Senior Health says the number of people with the disease doubles every five years after the age of 65. Your genes may be another factor, particularly in the early-onset, familial form of the disease, which is quite rare and strikes people between the ages of 30 and 60. Another risk factor is the presence of a particular strain of apolipoprotein E, or apoE. Although everyone has apoE, only about 15 percent have this variant.

Existing Treatments

• Current treatments for Alzheimer's, according to MayoClinic.com, consist primarily of drugs in two classes: cholinesterase inhibitors and memantine. These drugs slow the progression of mental decline. The former class of medications is effective in only about half of all Alzheimer's patients and includes donepezil (Aricept), galantamine (Razadyne) and rivastigmine (Exelon). Memantine, marketed under the trade name Namenda, helps to protect your brain cells from damage caused by glutamate.

Infrared Helmet

• BBC News in January 2008 reported the development of a possible new weapon in the fight against Alzheimer's. The new tool is a strange-looking helmet capable of delivering low levels of infrared light that its developers think can stimulate the growth of brain cells. The infrared helmet is the work of medical researchers at the University of Sunderland in northeastern England.

  Full-blown human testing has not been done on the infrared helmet, although the device did show promise in tests on a 57-year-old U.S. Alzheimer's patient. The Daily Mail reported in July 2008 that the patient showed "amazing progress" after only three weeks of treatment. Pleased with the positive test results, Dr. Gordon Dougal, who led the development team, said, "Potentially, this is hugely significant." The helmet has 700 light-emitting diodes that penetrate the skull at a wavelength its developers have determined is capable of stimulating brain cell growth.

  While controlled testing of the device has not yet been completed, in the tests on the U.S. patient, 57-year-old Clem Fennell of northern Kentucky wore the helmet for 10 minutes twice daily. Fennell's wife told the Daily Mail: "Honestly, I can tell you that within 10 days, the deterioration was stopped, then we started to see improvements."