Current pharmacologic options for patients with Alzheimer's disease

Biomedical literature related to acetylcholinesterase inhibitors (AChEIs) was surveyed. In the United States, there are four AChEIs approved for the treatment of AD: tacrine, donepezil, rivastigmine, and galantamine. There are other agents under investigation, but at present, AChEIs are the only approved drug category for AD treatment.AD is becoming a major public health concern and underdiagnosis is a significant problem (with only about half of AD patients being diagnosed and only half of those diagnosed actually being treated). Clinical trials have demonstrated that patients with AD who do not receive active treatment decline at more rapid rates than those who do.Given that untreated AD patients show decline in three major areas (cognition, behavior, and functional ability), if drug treatment is able to improve performance, maintain baseline performance over the long term, or allow for a slower rate of decline in performance, each of these outcomes should be viewed a treatment success.Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that is clinically characterized by loss of memory and progressive deficits in other cognitive domains. Alterations in behavior, such as apathy, agitation, and psychosis, are also cardinal clinical features. Together, the cognitive and behavioral alterations that define the clinical syndrome of AD underlie the progressive functional decline that all patients show in performing activities of daily living (ADL). Aside from its direct effects on patients, AD leads to a decreased quality of life and an increased burden on caregivers.AD is the most common cause of dementia in people 65 years and older: it affects 10% of people over the age of 65 and 50% of people over the age of 85 [1]. The number of patients with AD is expected to rise with increasing life expectancy and growth in the aging population. AD will potentially be the most overwhelming public health problem of this century. In the United States alone, the pr