A disease on track to bankrupt Medicare

Leading Alzheimer's researchers are optimistic that effective treatments to significantly slow or even halt the symptoms of this agonizing and ultimately fatal disease will be available within the next five years.

The hope springs from important breakthroughs on several fronts. Advances in high-powered imaging through PET (positron emission tomography) scans are giving researchers better diagnostic tools with which to view the brain. And a renewed interest in different brain proteins is providing greater clues as to which ones are responsible for kick-starting this devastating disease in the first place. Read more.