Dementia is a serious global impairment of cognitive ability that goes beyond what might be expected from normal aging in a previously unimpaired person. Dementia is not a single disease, but rather a non-specific illness syndrome. Cognitive impairment frequently emerges together with various emotional and behavioral symptoms. Some of the most common forms of dementia are: Alzheimer´s disease (AD), vascular dementia, dementia with Lewy bodies, and frontotemporal dementia. Precise history taking, cognitive testing, laboratory tests, and imaging are necessary for the proper differential diagnosis of dementia. Although numerous research studies have indicated that the disease is associated with plaques and tangles in the brain, the causes and progression of AD are not well understood. Current approved drug treatment for patients with AD includes cholinesterase inhibitors (donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine) and the NMDA receptor antagonist, memantine. These drugs are relatively simple to use, although they only help alleviate the symptoms of the disease. Over the last 20 years, drug development has been directed towards ‘disease modifying drugs´ that could modify the pathological steps leading to AD and counteract the progression of the disease. Disease modifying drugs developed so far include drugs to reduce b amyloid (A b) production, prevent A b aggregation, promote A b clearance, drugs targeting tau phosphorylation and assembly and other approaches. Unfortunately none of these drugs has demonstrated efficacy in phase 3 studies. The failure of clinical trials with disease modifying drugs raises a number of questions, spanning from methodological flaws to our fundamental understanding of AD pathophysiology and biology. The use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) appears to be on the rise to delay cognitive symptoms. However, there is no conclusive evidence to support their benefit.
抄録全体を表示