[Disease-modifying treatment approaches for Alzheimer's disease]

Alzheimer's disease is one the major common diseases but so far only with symptomatic treatment options. New insights define the disease as a slowly progressive continuum with very long preclinical and early symptomatic phases. Innovative molecular treatment strategies are based on an improved understanding of the molecular neurobiology of the disease, opening up a variety of therapeutic targets. For the first time, an anti-amyloid antibody has been approved in the USA in 2021 as a disease-modifying treatment for Alzheimer's disease, representing a first highly controversial step towards a molecular, cause-oriented treatment. This review presents the most advanced molecular treatment strategies and discusses the implications of the approved antibody treatment for the clinical practice. The special features of this long-term treatment with i.v. infusions in a particularly vulnerable population and a special side effect profile will impose significant challenges for implementation in the practice and will require a high degree of cooperation within the healthcare system. The future of Alzheimer's treatment with a multimodal therapeutic approach with different classes of drugs will probably reinforce these trends.