Are We Actually Making Progress on Alzheimer’s? Here’s the Real Story

Many of you who have followed me for more than 20 years know the story of the day my mom, Ida, looked at me in a Perkins restaurant in Memphis, Tennessee, and said, “Now, who are you again?”

My world pivoted in that moment.

Over time, I shifted part of my life’s purpose and began using my mountain climbing to become an Alzheimer’s advocate — to honor Ida, raise awareness, and help fund research aimed at preventing, slowing, stopping, and eventually curing Alzheimer’s disease.

So where are we today?

I am asked this all the time when I speak: Are we actually getting anywhere?

You read the press, try to follow the science, subscribe to journals, and before long you’re buried in jargon and conflicting headlines. If you are a caregiver, or navigating symptoms yourself, progress can feel distant or painfully slow. It’s hard to square optimistic headlines with the day-to-day reality families face.

I recently met a 75-year-old gentleman showing mid-stage symptoms. He asked me, “Where can I get reliable information on the research?” I’ll answer him at the end of this post.

When you look across the latest federal reports and research advances, two truths come into focus. The science is moving — faster and more meaningfully than it has in decades. At the same time, far too many people still can’t access the benefits of that progress.

Together, those two truths tell the real story of Alzheimer’s in 2026.

The Good News: The Science Really Is Moving

I started with the National Institutes of Health, where billions of taxpayer dollars now support Alzheimer’s and dementia research.

Since 2006, when I first became aware of my mom’s condition, federal investment in Alzheimer’s and related dementias research has grown from roughly $500 million dollars a year to about $3.9 billion in FY2026 — nearly an tenfold increase.

And that investment is producing results.

Blood tests for Alzheimer’s, once considered a moonshot, have entered clinical practice. These tests look for biomarkers — measurable signs of the disease in the body — that used to require a PET scan or spinal tap. The FDA cleared the first blood test to aid in Alzheimer’s diagnosis in May 2025, and a second, for use in primary care, that October.

These tests are not yet simple stand-alone screening tools for everyone, and questions remain about access, insurance coverage, and appropriate use. But they represent a significant shift toward earlier, less invasive diagnosis.

Bear with me on the jargon, but researchers are also making real progress in understanding tau, microglia — essentially the brain’s immune cells — inflammation, genetics, vascular factors, and why some brain connections appear more resilient than others.

Clinical trials are becoming more targeted. Biomarkers let researchers identify and monitor disease earlier. Disease-modifying treatments now exist that can slow progression for some people in the early stages of Alzheimer’s. Even caregiving interventions are being studied and scaled to help families manage the enormous practical burden of dementia.

This is not vague, “maybe someday” progress. These are measurable steps that are changing what is possible.

The Hard Truth: Progress Isn’t Reaching Everyone

This summer, the federal government held five virtual listening sessions under the National Alzheimer’s Project Act, or NAPA. Nearly 200 people took part: people living with dementia, caregivers, clinicians, researchers, Tribal leaders, and advocates.

Their experiences reveal a very different side of the story.

Participants described families waiting months or even years for an accurate diagnosis, particularly with young-onset dementia. They reported provider bias and misdiagnosis in Black, Hispanic/Latino, Tribal, and other historically underserved communities. Rural families described long drives just to reach a neurologist, a PET scan, or a clinical trial.

The pattern is clear. The newest diagnostics, specialty care, trials, and treatments are far easier to reach if you have money, good insurance, and a major medical center nearby. Everyone else faces barriers at every step.

That is the equity gap. Closing it may prove just as important as developing the next drug or diagnostic test. Scientific breakthroughs mean far less if only a fraction of the population can benefit from them.

One group is especially personal for me because of my stepson, Cory. When I first met Cory, I had no idea about the link between Down syndrome and Alzheimer’s. Nearly all adults with Down syndrome develop the brain changes of Alzheimer’s by middle age, yet people with Down syndrome and other intellectual and developmental disabilities still face barriers to research participation and appropriate dementia care.

Veterans have their own unique needs. And shortages of neurologists, geriatricians, and dementia-trained professionals make specialty care hard to get even for families actively seeking help.

A Word About Caregivers: The Invisible Backbone

After a recent talk, a woman came up to me and said, “It seems like your mom was a wonderful person. I lost mine last year. She lived with us for six years, and I had to quit my job to take care of her.” Her voice trailed away as I put my arm around her shoulder.

Caregivers of patients with Alzheimer’s Disease have a higher prevalence of mental health disorders, particularly depression and anxiety, as compared with the general population and with their counterparts caring for patients with other illnesses.

Caregivers still carry the heaviest load. In the listening sessions, they described losing jobs, income, insurance, and in some cases housing, because our health-care and social-support systems are not designed around the realities of long-term dementia care.

Caregiving often means coordinating medical care, managing medications, navigating insurance, handling transportation, and being available around the clock. It also means interrupted careers, emotional exhaustion, and real financial cost.

Caregivers repeatedly say they need practical training, respite care, financial relief, and health-care systems that treat them as part of the care team.

The message is simple: you cannot talk about progress against Alzheimer’s without talking about the people holding everything together at home.

Who’s Doing the Work

Many organizations are fighting this disease. Three show how the pieces fit together.

The Alzheimer’s Association brings scale. It is the world’s largest nonprofit funder of Alzheimer’s and dementia research, with more than $430 million invested in over 1,150 active projects in 57 countries. That work complements the much larger federal investment through NIH.

Cure Alzheimer’s Fund is especially personal for me. I have partnered with CureAlz since 2007 because its focus is simple: fund the research most likely to slow, stop, and ultimately cure Alzheimer’s. Since 2004, it has provided more than $280 million in research funding to more than 400 researchers through over 1,000 grants. Its Alzheimer’s Genome Project helped identify CD33 as a risk gene, and it has since funded major work on TREM2, microglia, and neuroinflammation. Its board and core supporters cover operating costs, so other donations go to research.

UsAgainstAlzheimer’s applies policy pressure. Government policy matters, and it has pushed for broader Medicare coverage of Alzheimer’s treatments, continued access to faster FDA approvals, and better representation of underserved communities in research. Its Voices of Alzheimer’s network brings people living with the disease directly into research and policy discussions.

Research, policy, advocacy, care: together they form an increasingly powerful ecosystem. But the listening sessions show how far we still have to go before breakthroughs reliably reach everyone who needs them.

Real Solutions Exist — We Just Need to Act on Them

One encouraging part of the listening sessions: participants didn’t just describe problems. They offered practical solutions.

• Expand Medicare coverage for appropriate blood-based biomarker tests
• Bring advanced diagnostics to rural areas, including mobile services where practical
• Provide transportation help for people in clinical trials or specialty care
• Expand financial support and tax relief for family caregivers
• Require stronger dementia-care training for long-term care workers
• Extend Medicare’s GUIDE dementia-care program to people now excluded, including Medicare Advantage members and memory-care residents
• Encourage earlier cognitive baseline testing for higher-risk groups

These are not abstract policy ideas. They are direct answers to barriers families hit every day.

Where to Start: Reliable Information

To the gentleman who asked me where to find reliable information, and to anyone else wondering, these are the places I trust:

• Alzheimers.gov — the federal government’s hub for research, diagnosis, and care resources
• Alzheimer’s Association — research updates, a 24/7 helpline (800-272-3900), and its TrialMatch service for clinical trials
• Cure Alzheimer’s Fund — plain-language explanations of the latest research
• UsAgainstAlzheimer’s — policy news and ways to make your voice heard
• Family Caregiver Alliance — practical help for caregivers

How You Can Help Today

One simple step: ask Congress to pass the bipartisan Alzheimer’s Screening and Prevention (ASAP) Act. Medicare covers the new blood tests once someone has symptoms, but under current law it cannot cover any screening test for dementia in people without symptoms. Only Congress can fix that, the way it did for mammograms and cancer screening. The Alzheimer’s Association has set up a simple form to contact your representatives. I did.

Where This Leaves Us

We are at an important moment in the fight against Alzheimer’s.

For the first time, we have treatments that can slow the disease for some people in its early stages. Blood tests are moving into clinical practice. And researchers understand the biology at a level that would have been hard to imagine twenty years ago.

The science is finally beginning to catch up with the urgency families have felt for decades. Now the systems around it — diagnosis, insurance coverage, access, workforce, caregiving, and long-term support — have to catch up too.

If you have lived with this disease, or watched someone you love slowly disappear from it, this is not the time to declare victory. It is the time to push harder.

The story of Alzheimer’s in 2026 is not one of failure. And it is not one of false hope. It is real scientific momentum running into very real human and systemic barriers.

For me, this has never been an abstract debate. It goes back to that day in Memphis when Mom looked at me and asked:

“Now, who are you again?”

Nearly twenty years later, I see far more reason for hope. But I also see how much work remains.

Accelerate the science.

Remove the barriers.

Support the caregivers.

Make sure progress reaches everyone.

I will keep using my platform, my voice, and my vow to Ida — that the world will never forget Ida Arnette — in the fight to prevent, slow, stop, and ultimately cure Alzheimer’s disease.