UT Health neurologist leads groundbreaking Alzheimer’s drug trial [Video]

HOUSTON — A new class of Alzheimer’s drugs is now on the market. Instead of treating symptoms, this medication attacks the disease with promising results.

Rolfe and Carol Johnson just celebrated their 63rd wedding anniversary. 

“I married her when I graduated from Rice,” said Rolfe. 

After three children, nine grandchildren, and a law career, Rolfe was 75 when he sought out UTHealth neurologist Dr. Paul Schulz.  Rolfe said he was “forgetting stuff.”

Schulz specializes in dementia. Three years ago, Schulz enrolled Rolfe as the first patient in Texas for a drug trial designed to destroy brain plaque linked to Alzheimer’s. The drug is made of antibodies.

“They find the amyloid in the brain, and they attach to it,” Schulz explained. “That turns on the white blood cells, which then literally eat the amyloid plaques. By a year and a half (of treatment), most people don’t …