A diagnosis of Alzheimer’s Disease, the neurodegenerative disorder that mercilessly robs the mind of memory, can be devastating.
The disease affects an estimated 6.5 million people, and Dr. Kim G. Johnson is squarely in the fight to slow its progress.
Johnson, an assistant professor of psychiatry and neurology, is the division chief of the Memory Disorders program at Duke’s School of Medicine. She is also a co-leader of the clinical group at the Duke-UNC Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, a collaboration funded by the National Institutes of Health.
She has worked with her fellow researchers at Duke and UNC-Chapel Hill to determine why cognitive decline occurs in the aging process, to identify effective methods of prevention and intervention, and to reduce disparities associated with dementia.
“My goals,” Johnson says, “are to help patients achieve optimal functioning and access to the latest treatments.” As such, she seeks to develop drugs and lifestyle strategies to prevent or delay the onset.
Johnson and her colleagues are proving to be on the cutting edge of research and treatment to slow down the progression of Alzheimer’s disease. She leads trials on gene therapy for patients with genetic risk for Alzheimer’s disease and new treatments that may prevent the disease.
In the past year, the Duke University Health System led the nation in prescribing the new FDA approved drug, lecanemab, which shows evidence of slowing the progression of the Alzheimer’s disease for people in the earliest stages of the illness. Many other health systems are not yet offering this new drug.
The physician and scholar has adopted a simple approach to assist patients in their battle with a cruel, highly complex disease. She wants to partner with patients to help find a cause and cure, and for patients to “have their best day, every day, the way things are today.”
