So it started, a smart man with a big problem

Dr. David Crandall DDS began noticing cognitive decline issues about 10 years prior to his death. As he had tremendous cognitive reserves, the periodic forgetfulness and word finding issues were more a nuisance than a problem. His agile brain compensated beautifully – giving him great excuses for why he was late to the breakfast meeting (he’d forgotten the way) and gave him better words for the words he couldn’t find. All in all, in those early years of disease Doc was able to compensate well without too much impact to his robust lifestyle. 

But then he got really sick with an auto immune condition called Poly-Myalgia-Reumatica (PMR). This auto-immune condition (we touch upon auto-immune diseases and AD in another vlog) required him to take high dose steroids – and suddenly he realized how compounding that slow cognitive loss actually had become. He remarked just after his first high dose of steroids that he felt “the clearest I’ve been in years.” Kid’s birthdays were suddenly at his disposal again, complex mental math was surprisingly easy, he could even recite the past 10 presidents as if he were reciting the alphabet. 

After the PMR treatment ended, so did the steroids. And within no time, the cognitive declines & fuzziness from before were back – which scared Dr. Crandall. Unfortunately for him, his PMR relapsed. Fortunately for humanity this brought about a continuation of the prior steroid therapy – and an “Aha Moment” for him when just like clockwork, his cognition returned to earlier levels. It was then he realized his cognition decline could be reversed by steroids. And it was then when his own research began. Dr. Crandall combed the internet for studies on steroid-responsive cognition. Suddenly, he found that his experience was backed up by science. Large scale studies were being conducted on just this phenomena. Dr. Crandall contacted many of these pioneers and began the dialogue: “if you had a guinea pig, such as me – what would you prescribe?”

As steroids are very hard on the body, Dr. Crandall found himself in a place of conflict: once his auto-immune disorder was in complete remission, his doctors were pushing to wean his steroids. Yet, every time his dose was lowered, he experienced greater confusion. At the point where it was clear that his quality of life was being challenged by not being on steroids, he began “shopping” doctors to find someone brave enough to review the medication recommendations he was getting from the scientific community. Finally, one such doctor, after hearing DEC literally cry about his loss of abilities, agreed to prescribe steroids by calling the dosing “hospice” so his own medical conscience could rest. 

And as this doctor watched Dr. Crandall go from using a cane to walking independently again, he too became fascinated by the unquestionable cognitive connection of his “hospice therapies.” 

Over time, new drugs entered the playing field as Dave experienced shingles, and contracted his first UTI. And each new drug brought him even closer to finding a cure for Alzheimer’s Disease. 

Unfortunately, by the time we arrived at the final drug combination, the disease had progressed too far and Dr. Crandall was in a memory care facility that refused to endorse his own drug regimen. And so, tragically – he was allowed to succumb to the disease he helped cure. 

Dr. Crandall’s pioneer doctors begged me to not let this medical miracle die along with my father. 

As Dave and I had always played around with the idea of creating a foundation to help solve what he had (we called it the DAC Foundation for David and Anna Crandall), once the University confirmed he had Alzheimer’s – but had accomplished the closest thing to a cure they’d ever seen – I reordered our name to CAD for Curing Alzheimer’s Disease. And that is what we intend to do.