NPR Health
Joe Walsh, 79, is waiting to inhale.
He's perched on a tan recliner at the Center for Alzheimer Research and Treatment at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston. His wife, Karen Walsh, hovers over him, ready to depress the plunger on a nasal spray applicator.
"One, two, three," a nurse counts. The plunger plunges, Walsh sniffs, and it's done.
The nasal spray contains an experimental monoclonal antibody meant to reduce the Alzheimer's-related inflammation in Walsh's brain.
He is the first person living with Alzheimer's to get the treatment, which is also being tested in people with diseases including multiple sclerosis, ALS and COVID-19.
And the drug appears to be reducing the inflammation in Walsh's brain, researchers report in the journal Clinical Nuclear Medicine .
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