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Michigan Avenue - 2015 - Issue 7 - November - Duncan Keith

Michigan Avenue - Niche Media - Michigan Avenue magazine is a luxury lifestyle magazine centered around Chicago’s finest people, events, fashion, health & beauty, fine dining & more!

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Princess Yasmin Aga Khan (center) with Robert and Linda Mendelson, members of the steering committee for the 2015 Rita Hayworth Gala in Chicago. optimism among Alzheimer's researchers. News from the science front has admittedly been dreary as far as Alzheimer's is concerned, with no effective treatments on the market and just a few FDA-approved drugs available that have had some success in boosting a patient's memory. "But that doesn't mean there's noth- ing on the horizon," says Hartley, who cites one recent breakthrough that enables researchers to image the living brain and see problem- causing plaques and tangles that start to develop long before Alzheimer's is present, as opposed to having to wait for an autopsy. That knowledge can hopefully lead to the ability to recognize who is at the most risk and, ideally, stop the progression of the disease before a per- son demonstrates symptoms—perhaps with a drug that may already be in trials. "What we're thinking," explains Hartley, "is that maybe [some of ] those drugs that have failed in clini- cal trials weren't inappropriate, they were just being used at the wrong time." At the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, director and world-renowned Alzheimer's researcher Dr. Jeffrey Cummings speaks optimistically about another poten- tial breakthrough that may be at hand involving the use of new immunotherapies for patients with A lzheimer's. "I m munot herapies involve g iv ing patients antibodies, which then attack the abnor- mal proteins that are accumulating in the brain," he explains. "There are two of these treatments that are particularly promising—one from Lilly, one above: New brain-imaging technology makes it possible to see the plaques and tangles associated with Alzheimer's disease before memory problems or other symptoms develop. photography Courtesy of teK IMage/sCIenCe photo LIbrary/CorbIs (teChnoLogy); bILL reIChert (MendeLson) michiganavemag.com  125 continued on page 126 Gray Matters Chicago-area residents Betsy and Dave Goltermann take up the fght against Alzheimer's disease. By Meg Mathis J anet Gray was seem- ingly unstoppable—the Mooresville, Indiana resident was an avid golfer, a consummate entertainer, and a devoted member of Coterie, Art Club, and Tri Kappa—but all too soon her light began to fade. "My mom had dementia 10 years and for the last four years was pretty non-communicative," says daughter Betsy Goltermann, a Glen Ellyn resident, of her mother, who passed away in November 2014. "Betsy's mom went from being the life of the party to someone that towards her last year didn't speak at all," says Betsy's husband Dave Goltermann, CEO of KI Industries and a member of the national board of directors at the Alzheimer's Association. While Dave found it diffcult to watch his mother-in-law lose her abilities to speak and feed herself, the toll it took on Janet's husband, Gordon, was perhaps even more devastating. "In many cases it's harder on the caregiver, because the caregiver ends up being in the position where it's a 24-hour-a-day job," says Dave. Today, Dave is using his role on the board to leverage support at a national level, helping the organization champion the National Alzheimer's Project Act for at least $2 billion in federal research funding per year to fnd treatment and a cure for the disease by 2025. Also Dave and Betsy's daughter Heidi Goltermann has gotten involved as cofundraising man- agement chair of the Young Professional Alzheimer's Association of Colorado. While the statistics surrounding

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