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Eighteen-million people worldwide are affected by Alzheimer's disease and that number is expected to triple in the next 30 years. Complications from the disease are one of the leading causes of death in the elderly. Now, researchers around the world are hoping an investigational drug will not only slow its progression, but reverse the disease.

Two-and-a-half years ago, 56-year-old Fred Ruekert was diagnosed with Alzheimer's; a disease that took his father in his 60s and his brother at age 57. Fred's wife of more than 30 years says she saw the warning signs.

"There definitely was a shift in his personality that made it recognizable here," Irene Ruekert told Ivanhoe.

Now, Fred worries what the future holds, not just for him, but for his six kids.

"If they could take my brain and take it apart and figure out what's wrong and cure everybody that'd be great. I'd say, 'Take me now,'" Fred said.

Fred is part of a phase 3 trial to test a therapeutic antibody designed to target and eliminate beta amyloid, an abnormal protein in the brain that's linked to Alzheimer's disease.

"This is the first line of medications which potentially can be a modifying agent, instead of medications which we have right now available, which are more symptomatic treatments," Malgorzata Franczak, M.D., a neurologist at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, explained to Ivanhoe.

Dr. Franczak has been treating Alzheimer's patients for more than a decade. Though it's too soon to know what affect this new drug will have on the brain, she's excited about the possibilities.

"Not only again slow down the progression of the disease, but actually arrest the disease, stop the progression of the disease, or maybe reverse some of the changes which have already occurred in patients' brain," she said.

Irene prays it will give her more time with her husband.

"If this one doesn't work, we'll look for the next one and find something that does," Irene said. "He's too young to have this happen … to be gone and I want to grow old together and that's what I want the opportunity to do with him."

Researchers around the world are recruiting more than 1,200 volunteers for the Alzheimer's drug trial. Patients must be between 50 and 88 years old, have a diagnosis of mild to moderate Alzheimer's, and have a caregiver willing to participate in the study.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

(877) 797-8839 http://www.ICARAstudy.com