A hospital nurse for 33 years, Nanette Miller would call her husband Frank at the end of each shift to let him know she was coming home. On Dec. 7, 2018, the phone call came with a somber declaration: I cant do this anymore.

Miller had to help on another hospital floor that day. She didnt know how to get back.

Several months later, she was diagnosed with what she and her husband had feared early onset Alzheimers disease.

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Using focused ultrasound, Dr. Ali Rezai, executive chair of the RNI, and his team successfully opened the blood-brain barrier in a clinical trial with Miller, 54, of Mill Run, Pennsylvania.

By opening the blood-brain barrier, which separates the bloodstream from the brain tissue and restricts medicines, immunotherapy, gene therapy and other therapeutics from entering the brain, researchers hope it can reduce plaques and lessen Millers symptoms.

Rezai and his team previously made waves by being the first in the world to open the hippocampal blood-brain barrier in Alzheimers patients. With Miller, doctors took it a step further by targeting other parts of the brain, namely the parietal lobe, insula and precuneus.

Because our first trial with opening the blood-brain barrier was successful, we were able to treat larger parts of the brain, Rezai said. These other parts of the brain, broadly the parietal lobe, are involved in knowing where you are within your environment and surroundings, and in thinking and processing of memory.

During this study, doctors injected microscopic bubbles into the patients bloodstream, and exposed the bubbles to focused ultrasound from a treatment helmet attached to the MRI, temporarily causing the blood brain barrier to open.

The gradual decline

Forgetting how to return to her work floor was not the only memory setback for Miller. She struggled with number combinations to secure areas of the hospital containing medicines

A coconut cake she made mistakenly wound up in a cupboard. By the time, they found it, it had molded.

And, as an organist at Indian Creek Baptist Church in Mill Run for several years, Miller can no longer play the instrument.

According to the Mayo Clinic, Alzheimer's disease is a progressive disorder that causes brain cells to waste away and die. It is the most common cause of dementia a continuous decline in thinking, behavioral and social skills that disrupts a person's ability to function independently.

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WVU Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute expands pioneering Alzheimer's treatment to wider region of the brain - DOTmed HealthCare Business News