Review/Advances in Neurological Therapeutics (2021). Dementia

Abstract

For those of us involved in dementia care, 2021 was a big year. In June, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conditionally approved aducanumab. It is the first disease–modifying drug to be approved. Meanwhile, the Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use (CHMP) of the European Medicines Agency adopted a negative opinion in December. Subsequently, in Japan, where a review was conducted at the end of the same year, the decision was made to “continue deliberations,” resulting in a split decision in each country.

In addition, there was the pandemic of the new coronavirus (SARS–CoV–2) infection, which affected not only acute care facilities but also all medical and nursing care facilities, including those for dementia.

Although it has been an eventful year, this report focuses on the results of relatively large clinical studies on dementia treatment reported in 2021. As far as we could find, most of them were related to Alzheimer disease, and only a few were related to dementia with Lewy bodies. Here we report a summary of these studies.