When Two Alzheimer Drugs are Better than One
Fri, October 10, 2008 at 02:00AM The cholinesterase inhibitors - e.g. donepezil, galantamine, rivastigmine (Exelon®) are well-established treatments for mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. More recently a drug with a different mechanism of action – memantine or Namenda® - has been introduced, for use in moderate to severe Alzheimer’s. Both types of drugs have an ill-deserved reputation of only working in a limited number of patients, and only for a short period. Boston researchers decided to see whether a combination of a cholinesterase inhibitor and memantine would be more effective than either of the two drugs alone. They published the results of their study in Alzheimer Disease and Associated Disorders.
Over 380 patients at the Massachusetts General Hospital with Alzheimer’s were enrolled. 144 received no drug treatment, 122 received a cholinesterase inhibitor alone, and 116 received both a cholinesterase inhibitor and memantine. The average follow-up period was 2½ years.
All the participating patients deteriorated over the study period, but in those taking the combination of drugs there was a significantly lower rate of deterioration, based on two well-recognized Alzheimer scoring scales.
The authors of the study report write: “These benefits had small-to-medium effect sizes that increased with time on treatment and were sustained for years.” Sounds like a small but significant step forward in our management of Alzheimer’s.
Reader Comments (1)
This is good news to all because Alzheimer is really a big problem now. Hope soon they will discover something that will really help people with this kind of disease. Nice blog here and got some interesting posts, looking forward to read more from you..
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