When we get sick, all too many of us respond reflexively: Ring up the doctor, wolf down some prescribed pills, and everything, we hope and trust, will turn out fine.

That approach is problematic on many levels, especially because it often does not work. Big Pharma may be riding high these days, what with its development of miraculous coronavirus vaccines. But drug makers absolutely have not come up with treatments for all of humanity’s major ills.

This is especially true with dementia and the cognitive condition’s best-known form: Alzheimer’s disease. Sure, the news has been full of reports that the federal Food and Drug Administration just granted an accelerated approval to a prescription medication from Biogen aimed at Alzheimer’s — the first such drug to win such an endorsement in a decade.