People with Alzheimer's disease are less likely to participate in a clinical trial if they have non-spouse caregivers, according to a study by a team of researchers including the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The new study, published in the December 19th, 2012, issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, demonstrates that additional recruitment and retention strategies may be required to increase enrollment of AD patients with caregivers other than spouses.

"The majority of Alzheimer’s patients are cared for by caregivers who are not their spouses, but we discovered that in Alzheimer’s disease clinical trials, most patients’ caregivers are their spouses," said senior study author Jason Karlawish, MD, co-director of the Penn Memory Center and professor of Medicine, Medical Ethics and Health Policy in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Penn Medicine News Release