Morning Edition

New documentary asks why an Alzheimer’s cure remains elusive

The number of older people living in this country is ballooning, and by 2030, nearly 14 million people may be living with Alzheimer’s dementia. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention calls the disease is a public health crisis.

Yet after four decades of research and billions of dollars spent, scientists still don’t know what causes Alzheimer’s, can’t treat it, and don’t even agree on what it is.

A new documentary by APM Reports called Fading Minds: Why There’s Still No Cure for Alzheimer’s investigates how we got to this point. Morning Edition host Cathy Wurzer spoke with reporter Maja Beckstrom about what she found.

Editor’s note (Oct. 24, 2019): The audio on the story has been updated.