In China, A New Alzheimer’s Drug Is Met With Cauti...

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Lecanemab was approved for use in the country earlier this year. But getting the most out of the drug will require broader reforms. SHANGHAI — For the past year or so, Yan has found herself preoccupied with a minor detail from a 2019 trip across Northwest China she took with her then 70-year-old mother. The pair had just ordered a rideshare, but no matter how many times Yan told her mom the car was on its way, the older woman kept asking where it was. “I thought she was just nervous,” Yan tells Sixth Tone. Now the 50-year-old small business owner from Changzhou, about an hour outside Shanghai, wonders if it was a warning sign. Last year, Yan’s father noticed that her mother, surnamed Zhang, seemed to be having memory problems. After talking it over, Yan and her father decided to take her for a check-up. The diagnosis was devastating: Zhang was showing early symptoms of Alzheimer’s, a progressive neurological disease and the most common type of dementia. “Alzheimer’s is so ………………………………