BBC Panorama captures the promise and challenges of new Alzheimer’s treatments

Monday’s BBC Panorama episode – “Alzheimer’s: A Turning Point?” – focused on the potential arrival of two new breakthrough treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, lecanemab and donanemab. In the past two years, both drugs have been shown to slow down the progression of the early stages of the disease – which is the most common form of dementia.

The documentary follows the BBC’s Medical Editor, Fergus Walsh, as he meets people with Alzheimer’s who have been taking the drugs by participating in clinical trials. Neither drug currently has a licence to be prescribed in the UK outside of these trials, but decisions on this are expected in the coming months.

Dawn, who’s 62 and from Hampshire, is currently taking donanemab. On the show, she explained that she is hopeful the drug will help her. “If it slows it down, then I’ll be able to function as I’d like to and do some of the things I’d still like to do” she said.

Fergus also spoke to Consultant Neurologist Dr Cath Mummery, Head of Clinical Trials at the Dementia Research Centre at University College London, and who spoke at Alzheimer’s Research UK’s 2023 Clinical Conference. Although the effects of these drugs are modest – they appear to slow cognitive decline by between about a quarter and a third over 18 months – Dr Mummery said this would make a meaningful difference to individual patients, giving them “about five months at a higher function.”