Measuring the effects of anti-dementia drugs in patients with Alzheimer's disease

✍ Scribed by S. Curran; J. P. Wattis

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 179 KB
• Volume: 12
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0885-6222
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-1077(199707/08)12:4<347::aid-hup874>3.0.co;2-d

✦ Synopsis

A large number of experimental compounds are being developed for the treatment of patients with Alzheimer's disease (AD). As dierent compounds may have dierent eects on CNS function, depending on which neurotransmitters they aect, adequate pro®ling will require the use of several tests. The diculties facing the psychopharmacologist in a clinical trial setting of dementia are numerous. Many of the current measures, particularly ratings scales, measure a complex range of variables in the same instrument and this makes interpretation of results dicult. More objective measures are needed but these are often chosen without regard to what the instrument measures in terms of psychological function. Despite these diculties the need to evaluate anti-dementia drugs will become increasingly important now that speci®c drugs for the treatment of AD have become available. It is likely that the best strategy for evaluating such compounds will be via a test battery, comprising a range of instruments (psychometric, clinical and neuropsychological) each measuring a clearly de®ned aspect of cognitive function. It may be time to rethink the evaluation of anti-dementia drugs from a psychopharmacological perspective and, in particular, to develop more objective and quantitative measures to be used alongside more `traditional' instruments.