Does memantine work in Alzheimer patients?
Alzheimer’s dementia is a very unpleasant chronic medical disorder that brings a lot of anguish to everyone looking after the involved patient. There are no good methods to make an early diagnosis and to make matters worse; there is no good medical treatment.
The
acetylcholine-esterase inhibitor, such as
Aricept, has not proven to be effective in clinical trials. In the last decade,
several novel drugs have been developed to treat AD, of which one of them is
memantine (Namenda).
Today
many physicians prescribe memantine for mild dementia-however; its efficacy has
only been supported by trials supported by the manufacturer.
Current
research indicates that memantine is not a drug of choice for mild dementia. Moreover, the
drugs benefits for moderate dementia
are very mild.
Another
important factor that has substantial importance in today's economy is the
price of Memantine. Depending on where you buy the drug, each pill can cost
anywhere from $2-$4. Memantine is supposed to be taken twice a day and this
amount to $120-$240 a month.
Finally,
there is no way of knowing if the drug will work. In the UK, the National
Institute for Clinical Excellence recently opposed the use of Memantine because
they felt the costs and it side effects clearly outweighed any possible
benefit.
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