A highly-anticipated Alzheimer's treatment is expected to become available this month. However, experts warn that accessibility will likely be a problem.

Lecanemab is the first treatment that appears to slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease. It's only for people in the early stages of cognitive decline.

Lecanemab is an infusion given every two weeks. It's estimated to cost $25,000 a year.

Those not wealthy or those not in clinical trials are expected to be left out.

"Another barrier to access stems from the fact Lecanemab is on accelerated FDA approval," said Dr. Michael Weiner.

He expects the FDA to announce whether the drug gets full approval later this year. If it is fully approved, the Center for Medicare Services will decide whether to cover it.

Once a drug is approved for Medicare, some insurance will pay for it and it is available through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

"I think those of us in the field, who see these patients and know what's going on and see the effects of this treatment, think that this treatment should definitely be available to the population, and we ought to try to find a way to pay for i.," Weiner said.

In clinical trials, the drug has been shown to slow cognitive decline by about 25%. Weiner said that could mean six to nine months of independence for patients and caregivers.

HAMILTON, Ohio —

With his laces tied tightly, Randy Bowling said he's ready to walk to work if he has to.

The nearly four-mile trek each way — from his apartment in Hamilton to Walmart in Fairfield Township — isn't ideal for the 50-year-old, who is also disabled. Bowling suffered a traumatic brain injury when he was 16.

That's one of the reasons he bought a $157 bicycle a few months ago.

"It's the first bike I ever bought myself," Bowling said.

He was proud of it. Now, it's gone.

It was stolen from outside Party Mart Express in Hamilton Saturday night.

Store security video shows Bowling walking his bike close to the front doors after his shift at Walmart.

He's in the East Avenue store for less than a minute before a man rides up on another bike, grabs Bowling's bicycle and rides off with it.

Bowling walks out in disbelief.

"He's made my life harder," Bowling said.

Bowling lives alone at the Serve City apartments. He said he needs his job to pay bills, and the bus isn't always an option.

"When we had heard, it just broke our hearts. Our residents struggle with so many other life issues, to have something like this happen is a real challenge," said David Hood, executive director of Serve City.

Neighbor Brenda Stevens called what happened unacceptable in her neighborhood.

"It's just aggravating. I don't know why people do it. It's selfish," Stevens said.

Other neighbors have expressed frustration and support.

"There's a lot of people that care. If I had a bike, I'd give it to him," said neighbor Andrew Yeager.

Bowling said even though he should be angry, he'd rather talk to the guy who snatched his bike and help him get a job.

For 18 months, we’ve been hearing about COVID-19 symptoms impacting the brain. In fact, research has shown that 1 in every 3 people that gets the virus has some sort of mental health or neurological disorder after.

Now, new research is unveiling a troubling connection between Alzheimer's, the progressive disease that destroys a person’s memory and mental functions, and COVID-19.

"We're actually seeing some changes in the underlying biology that's associated with Alzheimer’s," said Dr. Heather Snyder, vice president of Medical & Scientific Relations for the Alzheimer’s Association.

Dr. Snyder says researchers with an international consortium have found similar impacts on the brain that Alzheimer’s leaves behind--like brain inflammation--in some COVID-19 patients that leads to lasting cognitive impairment.

Simply put: what COVID has done in some patients’ brains is the same thing Alzheimer’s does. These symptoms seem to be happening in patients 60 and above.

"Now exactly how viruses are playing a role in the brain, you know, we don't know if it's a direct or an indirect, is it, are they getting into the brain? That's been a big question in the scientific community, but it may not matter so much in that we are seeing that there is in some people, this relation," said Dr. Snyder.

The "why" in this equation has still not been determined, but Dr. Snyder says that it may have something to do with damage to the immune system, which can damage the brain’s blood barrier – the defense that keeps it safe.

"Certainly, COVID is spread as a respiratory illness, but there are special problems that COVID causes that other respiratory illness does not," said neurologist Dr. Olav Jaren, from Overlake Hospital in Washington state.

He says that even though COVID-19 is mostly associated with the lungs, many patients experience different symptoms throughout the brain and body, and researchers are just scratching the surface of truly understanding this virus.

"Perhaps we will define this differently than as a respiratory illness," said Dr. Jaren.

More than 40 countries and more than 100 institutions are continuing to research the co-relation to COVID-19 and Alzheimer’s symptoms.

Dr. Snyder says the more work being done to figure that out may unlock other mysteries surrounding Alzheimer's itself.

"Really understanding the interplay of the different biologies, whether it be our immune system, our blood-brain barrier, just as to the vascular contributions and how all of these work together. I think one of the things that I'm most hopeful about in the field is really the diversity of what's moving into the pipeline," she said.

In the meantime, physicians hope findings like these inspire others to protect themselves and others.

"Do what you can to not get COVID, so get vaccinated. If you do get COVID, have that conversation with your health care provider. Make sure you take care of your health," said Dr. Snyder.

Taking an afternoon nap could be good for the brain, a new study suggests.

The study, published in General Pschiatry, looked at results of cognitive tests in people who regularly took an afternoon nap and those who didn’t. They specifically studied more than 2,200 people in China who were 60 or older.

Naps were defined by researchers as a period of sleep taken after lunch lasting between five minutes and two hours.

Both the nappers and the non-nappers took cognitive tests which assess “visual space, memory, naming, attention, calculation, abstract, orientation and language function,” according to the study’s authors.

Researchers noticed “scores were statistically higher in the napping group compared with the non-napping group. Furthermore, we observed significant differences in orientation, language function,” and language fluency.

However, they noted that their study, in combination with previous studies, shows not all naps are helpful.

“Longer and more frequent naps were associated with poorer cognitive functioning, while short (<30 min), frequent (four times weekly) naps were associated with an 84% decreased risk for developing Alzheimer’s disease,” the researchers noted.

The researchers admit their study was limited; they did not get too detailed with subjects about the duration of their naps or what time in the afternoon, or look at younger people.

OMAHA, Neb. —

Hearing the word "cancer" is scary for anyone, especially when you're just 9 years old. Sammy Strawn can call himself a survivor, and one heck of a baseball player too.

You don't have to be around Sammy for long to know he's anything but quiet on the field.

"My dad taught me when I was like maybe 3 or 4, so baseball's life to me," Sammy said.

But last October, he wasn't feeling like his normal self.

"We first found out after he had a prolonged headache at school and had to come home from school," his dad Joe said.

That long headache turned out to be caused by a brain tumor.

"It was a pilocytic astrocytoma," Joe said.

But baseball stayed on Sammy's mind. So when his parents told him what was going on, Joe said Sammy had just two questions: "First one: 'Am I going to live?' The second one: 'Am I going to play baseball again?'"

Joe and his wife Sarah Wemhoff-Strawn say they caught the tumor early on.

"(It was) not genetic, it was just a formulation of bad cells," Sarah said.

Between October and November, Sammy had two surgeries within weeks of each other. And just three days later, he was back to playing catch again.

"I didn't want to lie to him and say 'you will play baseball again,'" Joe said. "That was never a guarantee," Sarah chimed in.

Joe said he "was hoping by April he would be playing baseball and even that, I wasn't sure it was going to happen."

Sammy's impact inspired his parents so much that they started Sammy Strong, a foundation aiming to provide resources for families and everyone else involved in the life of a child facing what Sammy did.

Meanwhile, Sammy hasn't missed a single game or practice since his surgery.

He's grateful for his teammates.

"It's like they didn't even notice that I had cancer, and I was just a normal kid on the baseball team," Sammy said.

"I think grateful is the biggest understatement in the world," Sarah said.

Joe and Sarah say it's unlikely that the tumor will come back. But Sammy gets a check-up every three months to make sure everything is alright.

For more about the Sammy Strong foundation, go here.

GRETNA, Neb. —

On April 9, 19-year-old Lauren Rhodes received her dose of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine.

She posed for a picture, grinning widely and proudly showing off the band-aid on her arm.

"I was like, 'One and done,'" she said.

The Gretna, Nebraska, teenager went home that night and felt all the common, mild post-vaccine side effects.

"Fatigue and exhaustion," said Rhodes. "And then it just kind of got worse and worse."

She said she felt sick for weeks and the whole time, she and her family thought it was from the vaccine.

"We just figured this is a reaction," said Liz Rhodes, Lauren's mother.

Then other symptoms arose. Her legs buckled and her face drooped. She started showing symptoms that didn't match up with other peoples' vaccine reactions.

"If you asked me to squeeze your hand, I couldn't even squeeze it. Pick up my phone, I couldn't do it," said Rhodes.

She visited Dr. Carmella Imig at the CHI Health Gretna Clinic. Imig told the family to go to the hospital, where an MRI highlighted a tumor pressing on Rhodes' spinal cord.

"They said, 'This can't wait. We have to get this out now,'" Rhodes said.

On May 7, Rhodes was admitted to the hospital for surgery.

"[The tumor] was in the part of the cervical spine where if something would not have been done, she could have lost all function of her arms and legs," Imig said.

Rhodes spent the next two months undergoing physical, occupational and speech therapy.

She just completed therapy and is ready to be a normal college student again.

"I'm cleared for everything now," said Rhodes. "I can drive, I can bend, sit up, scoot, walk upstairs."

"We feel like we got our daughter back," said Rod Rhodes, her father.

Imig is thankful Rhodes got her vaccine, showed some symptoms and stopped by her office to get it checked out.

"It was actually a blessing that she did," Imig said. "Because it led her to the care that she needed."

Imig said the symptoms of Rhodes' tumor coincidentally followed her COVID-19 vaccine side effects. She said the two are not related at all.

Rhodes doesn't regret getting her shot and she encourages others to get it as well.

"Do it. I did it for myself, my family, my school. Protection," she said. "Even if it did cause a side effect, it made me aware of [the tumor] and we got it taken care of."

A 9-year-old with terminal brain cancer died early Friday morning.For years, the Louisville community gathered around David Turner Jr. following his April 2018 Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma (DIPG) diagnosis, a terminal cancer growing on his brain stem. David died "without pain" shortly before 4 a.m. on Friday, his family says, according to a post in the Facebook group David's Adventure DIPG.According to David's GoFundMe page, his family was told by doctors that a child's life expectancy is just nine months after a DIPG diagnosis, so they launched the "David's Adventure," Facebook page, an outlet that highlighted his experiences."He will continue to cross items off of his bucket list while he can; when cleared by his doctors," the page said.David was recently honored Tuesday at the Kentucky Capitol by Gov. Andy Beshear for DIPG Awareness Day.In a post on Facebook, Beshear proclaimed May 21, 2021, David Turner Jr. Ice Cream Day, a promise he made to David before his passing.Officials say DIPG affects 200 to 400 children annually.