They Have Alzheimer’s. This Clinical Trial May Be a Last Hope.

In the narrow window in which patients are aware of their disease, they have sought help in clinical trials. But enrolling enough participants to make these trials count is not easy.

Despite the urgent need for treatments to slow or stop Alzheimer’s disease, finding patients for clinical trials has been difficult and frustrating. Patients are often older. Their doctors may not be part of a research network. And many with dementia never get a diagnosis — their doctors do not tell them what is wrong or they avoid finding out that they have the dreaded disease. “How do you recruit when patients do not realize they are eligible?” said Michelle Papka, director of the Cognitive and Research Center, a clinical trial site in Springfield, N.J.