Dr. Barry Reisberg Receives Lifetime Achievement Award

Newswise — Barry Reisberg, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry at New York University School of Medicine, whose pioneering research led to a greater understanding of the progressive symptoms of Alzheimer's disease and to the development of treatment approaches for the disease, received an Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Alzheimer's Association on July 18. The award was presented jointly by the International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and the Alzheimer's Association at the 9th International Conference on Alzheimer's Disease and Related Disorders in Philadelphia.

Dr. Reisberg serves as Clinical Director of the New York University School of Medicine's Silberstein Aging and Dementia Research Center, a federally-funded research and clinical service facility dedicated to increased knowledge and improved treatment of Alzheimer's and related disorders of late life. He is also Director of the Fisher Alzheimer's Disease Education and Resources Program at NYU.

In the early 1980s Dr. Reisberg began describing, in many cases for the first time, the precise clinical course of Alzheimer's, which was then largely uncharted territory. His observations ultimately yielded several assessment scales of the stages and symptoms of the disease, the most common form of dementia affecting people over age 65. Over time these scales made it possible for clinicians to identify the specific developmental ages of Alzheimer's patients and to assess their health-care needs.

Based on their careful observations, Dr. Reisberg and his colleagues established that the stages of Alzheimer's mimic regression toward infancy: patients lose the ability to hold a job, handle finances, choose clothes, dress and bathe, control their bladder and bowels, and speak — reversing the order in which those skills were acquired as a child. Dr. Reisberg has coined the term "retrogenesis" to describe the characteristic decline of Alzheimer's patients. He continues to refine his observations of mental and behavioral symptoms, even among normally aging people experiencing occasional forgetfulness, in order to obtain better prognostic markers for the disease.

Today, Dr. Reisberg's scales, along with clinical descriptions of the progression of Alzheimer's, are widely used as pivotal measures in determining the efficacy of Alzheimer's disease treatments. In fact, the Center for Medicare Services in the United Sates, as well as some Canadian provinces, have mandated usage of Dr. Reisberg's measures for particular purposes.

Dr. Reisberg also has used his expertise to help design clinical trials of potential treatments for Alzheimer's, including a drug called Memantine, which has been shown to slow the progression of Alzheimer's at a time when the victim's mental and physical deterioration are rapidly accelerating. In 2003 Memantine was approved by the Food and Drug Administration as the first therapy available in the United States for the more advanced stages of Alzheimer's disease.

Other research conducted under Dr. Reisberg's direction has led to the development of the first approved medication for treating the behavioral disturbances of Alzheimer's disease (risperidone, approvals in more than thirty nations), and the worldwide approval of the cholinesterase inhibitor, rivastigmine.

A native New Yorker, Dr. Reisberg received his undergraduate training at the Brooklyn College of the City University of New York (1964-1968). He then completed a Japan Society Fellowship at Sophia University in Tokyo, before completing his medical studies at New York Medical College in 1972. Dr. Reisberg's internship and psychiatry training were at New York's Metropolitan Hospital (1972-1975), with a period of training at the Middlesex Hospital of the University of London. Subsequently, Dr. Reisberg joined the faculty of New York Medical College, where he embarked upon his research career. He joined the faculty of New York University School of Medicine in 1978.

Dr. Reisberg has served as President of the International Psychogeriatric Association (1997-99). He has also served on the Board of Directors of the American Aging Association, and as a board member and officer of the American Association for Geriatric Psychiatry. He served on the Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of the U.S. Alzheimer's Association and now serves on the Medical and Scientific Advisory Panel of Alzheimer's Disease International. A member of the editorial boards of seven medical and scientific journals, Dr. Reisberg is the author of the book A Guide to Alzheimer's Disease (Free Press/Macmillan) and editor of the textbook Alzheimer's Disease (Free Press/Macmillan). He has directed research supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for more than 20 years, and has been awarded six U.S. patents for his discoveries.

"I value this award," said Dr. Reisberg, "because it comes from my peers in the major international research organization on Alzheimer's disease and the most important international meeting on Alzheimer's disease, as well as from the Alzheimer's Association, an extraordinarily effective advocacy group. I've devoted my entire professional life to research on Alzheimer's disease, and we've been making great progress. Every day, I hear from people around the world about how our descriptions of the disease help them to understand and treat it."