Efficacy of oral physostigmine in primary degenerative dementia

✍ Scribed by Suha A. Beller; John E. Overall; Alan C. Swann

• Book ID: 104771463
• Publisher: Springer
• Year: 1985
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 525 KB
• Volume: 87
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0033-3158
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00431798

✦ Synopsis

To examine the efficacy of cholinergic enhancement in senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT), oral physostigmine was given to eight patients in a cross-over trial of three dose levels and a matching placebo. A dose-related improvement in memory as measured by objective verbal memory tests was observed. Performance was significantly better on the highest dose, 2 mg every 2 h, than on the lower doses. The effect was most systematically present for very short-term memory, which raises the question of whether the improvement may involve attention rather than longer term storage and retrieval.