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Hope for patients of Alzheimer's disease

Sarah Boseley

A CONTROVERSIAL drug for Alzheimer's can reverse some of the mental deterioration experienced by people who are in the advanced stages of the disease, according to a study published on Thursday.

Relatives and many doctors have campaigned for the drug, Aricept, to be made available to people with Alzheimer's — not least because there is no other treatment for the disease, which erodes the memory. The National Institute of Clinical Excellence, which assesses the cost-effectiveness of drugs, recommended that Aricept be made available only to patients who have moderate dementia.

A study published online by the Lancet journal on Thursday has looked for the first time at the use of the drug in people with advanced disease, living in care homes. Bengt Winblad from the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and colleagues recruited nearly 200 people with severe Alzheimer's and gave half of them Aricept, while the rest received a placebo for six months.

The results were positive, they say. "Donepezil [Aricept] slows and can reverse some aspects of deterioration of cognition and function in individuals with severe Alzheimer's who live in nursing homes," says Prof. Winblad.

However, in a commentary alongside the study, David Hogan of the division of geriatric medicine at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada, says the patients' improvement was measured by scores in tests that may seem significant to researchers, but do not mean much to most doctors treating patients. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

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