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Few words carry the weight of an Alzheimer’s diagnosis. They bring uncertainty, fear and questions about what the future will hold, not only for the person receiving the diagnosis, but also for the spouse, children and loved ones who will face the future together.
After more than six decades of marriage, retired U.S. Air Force colonels Oak DeBerg, PhD, and Joellen de Berg know that reality all too well. Having watched both her mother and sister live with Alzheimer’s disease, Joellen recognized the early signs when memory concerns began affecting her own life. Determined to find answers, the couple turned to the internationally recognized Alzheimer’s specialists at UT Health San Antonio’s Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases.
Today, Joellen is participating in clinical research designed to help scientists better understand Alzheimer’s disease and identify it earlier. Like thousands of research volunteers across the country, she isn’t participating only for herself. She is helping advance discoveries that could one day change the future for families facing Alzheimer’s around the world.
“When someone chooses to participate in a clinical trial, they contribute to discoveries that can improve care for countless others,” said Therica Miller, MBA, CCRP, UT San Antonio’s associate vice president for clinical research administration. “Clinical trials are conducted under rigorous safety and ethical standards and provide the evidence needed to develop new treatments, improve patient care and advance medical knowledge. Many of today’s most important medical breakthroughs were made possible because patients and research participants chose to take part in clinical research.”
Why clinical research matters
Clinical trials help physicians determine the safest and most effective treatments while advancing new discoveries that improve care for future patients.
At any given time, UT Health San Antonio, the academic health center and health system of The University of Texas at San Antonio, has more than 500 active clinical research studies underway. Every year, another 80 to 100 clinical trials begin, spanning conditions such as dementia, cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, respiratory care, behavior and mental wellness, oral health and many others.
Clinical research takes many forms, and participation looks different from one study to the next. While some clinical trials evaluate promising new therapies over an extended period, others explore everyday health questions and may involve only a single visit or a brief survey. At UT Health San Antonio, researchers are studying everything from how movement-based practices such as tai chi influence balance and mobility to whether certain oral health products strengthen tooth enamel.
Other studies, such as the ones Joellen is participating in, take aim at some of medicine’s most complex challenges, effectively changing the way diseases are understood and treated with new or improved therapies, medical devices or surgical techniques.
Recently, UT Health San Antonio researchers, physicians and patient volunteers conducted landmark studies involving rhenium obisbemeda, a drug shown to more than double survival rates for patients with glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. Another study pinpointed an earlier stage of Type 2 diabetes, termed “pre-prediabetes,” revealing that changes in the body occur long before prediabetic criteria are met, information health providers can consider to prevent disease in their patients.
Each breakthrough began as a question. And every person who enrolls in a clinical trial contributes to the scientific evidence that shapes the future of medicine.
How clinical trials work
Long before a potential new treatment reaches patients, scientists spend years studying diseases, testing promising ideas and carefully evaluating the results. Only after extensive research and rigorous safety and ethical reviews are potential therapies considered for clinical trials, where participant safety remains the highest priority.
When a promising approach is ready for human evaluation, it enters the clinical trial process. Researchers carefully evaluate safety and effectiveness through multiple phases of study before a treatment can receive approval for widespread use.
That process can take years, even decades.
And that level of scrutiny is intentional.
Every clinical trial follows a detailed research plan. Institutional review boards evaluate studies to ensure participant safety and ethical conduct. Volunteers receive detailed information about the study and must provide informed consent before participating. Throughout the process, researchers continuously monitor results and safety data.
These safeguards exist to protect participants while ensuring that the knowledge gained is scientifically sound.
The result is a system designed to answer one fundamental question: Does this approach truly improve human health?
A personal decision that can help many
Participating in Alzheimer’s research is deeply personal for Oak and Joellen.
“I guess because the disease is so prevalent in our family, I’m really glad that they’re working so hard to try and find every way that they can to deal with it,” Joellen said.
Many volunteers participate because they want to contribute to scientific knowledge. Others seek access to specialized expertise and close, personalized monitoring by clinical research teams. Some hope to advance understanding of diseases that have affected their families.
The value of that work is bigger than any single patient, according to Oak.
“Many people who have not been around Alzheimer’s think it involves one individual, and it really does not,” he said. “It involves not only the individual but the family members, friends and really the whole community.”
“Every person who volunteers for a clinical study becomes part of something much larger than themselves,” Miller said. “Whether a study lasts one visit or several years, each participant helps answer questions that move medicine forward. Their willingness to contribute today has the potential to improve the health and quality of life of families and communities they may never meet.”
Learn more about clinical trials at UT Health San Antonio and find ongoing studies by visiting uthscsa.edu/research/clinical-studies.
