Antidementia drugs - indication and duration of treatment

作者：Haupt Martin^*

来源：Psychopharmakotherapie, 2010, 17(1): 14-+.

• Alzheimer disease
• treatment
• pharmacological strategies
• practical considerations

Antidementia drugs - indication and duration of treatment
Treatment strategies in dementia have to be embedded in a multimodal array of interventional therapies. The present article focuses on the treatment with antidementia drugs, i. e. cholinesterase inhibitors and memantine. Their pharmacological properties, their efficacy and adverse events are mostly known and based on valid research data. Problems with respect to duration of treatment, necessity of changing substances, and discontinuation of treatment may not be solved on evidence-based criteria. Some consensus work, however, has been done to give advice in these therapeutic dilemmata during the course of long-term treatment in practice and is elaborated upon in the present article. In a nutshell, antidementia treatment in Alzheimer disease today is symptomatic and, hence, limited in efficacy. Adverse events, however, are predominantly mild and manageable, pharmacological interactions mostly detectable, and treatment effects quite often obvious and recognizable by patients and relatives.

• 出版日期2010-2