The following is a transcript of a report by medical editor Marilyn Brooks that first aired May 15, 2008, on WTAE Channel 4 Action News at 5 p.m.

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At 72, Sam Houston is in the late stages of Alzheimer's disease.

"He doesn't know that he doesn't know," said his wife, Eleanor. "It's much easier for him, but much harder for me, because I've kind of really lost what I had."

The two married 20 years ago and shared a love of the outdoors. But in 1999, Eleanor Houston said she noticed her husband's increasing forgetfulness, language problems and difficulty performing tasks.

"It took me a good month of crying constantly, just could not stop crying," Eleanor Houston said after her husband was diagnosed.

Sam Houston is one of 5 million Americans now living with Alzheimer's disease. More than 500,000 range from their 30s to 50s.

Inside their brains, a sticky amyloid protein builds up, destroys nerve cells and creates tangles. The brain actually shrinks as the disease robs their minds and ultimately their lives.

But Alzheimer's patients like Houston can slow progression with medications that boost thinking function.

"There's no question these drugs work, but at some point, they would cease to work when the system they're trying to boost no longer has the ability to be boosted," said Dr. Steven DeKosky, of the University of Pittsburgh's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.

Now, there are new options and new optimism that permanent solutions are within reach.

A new brain image test known as the Pittsburgh compound-B or PIB, can now diagnose Alzheimer's 10 years before symptoms will help with even earlier diagnosis.

"Give them the drugs then and hope that they never breakthrough and have problems with memory," said DeKosky.

Research centers nationwide are now enrolling patients in at least eight new trials that can delay the onset of Alzheimer's or perhaps prevent it all together.

Also, a dozen drugs are in the pipeline and three are just months from human trials, including an anti-amyloid that alters the protein so it's no longer sticky or toxic.

"The hope is that the brain itself will help to remove the material that's already there and stop the progression of the disorder," said DeKosky.

Another, a gamma-secretase, inhibits the enzymes that make the bad amyloid. Still, another drug, manufactured antibodies, given intravenously, binds to the amyloid and helps remove it.

All three drugs work in lab mice.

"By all expectations, these drugs should work," said DeKosky.

For many, hope rests not in new medications but rather in support groups.

At the support groups, patients find they are not alone and that there are ways to cope with the stress and grief.

"You need someone to talk to or just relieve that stress and somebody else understands what you're going through," said Kathy Francart whose mother was diagnosed about a year ago. "It's a huge help."

"It was a very hard decision, and it's still is a hard decision," said Terrance McGuire, talking about putting his wife into a care home. "I feel I failed her some how."

The University of Pittsburgh's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center will soon start enrolling patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's for two clinical drug trials. Nationwide, a total of 146 trials are already under way. Half of those trials already have enough data to start evaluating how well the first drugs work. All will be critical in validating the theory that beta-amyloid protein is the main culprit behind Alzheimer's.

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