Drug improves speech, memory in Alzheimer’s patients

LONDON (Reuters) – A drug used to treat Alzheimer’s disease
can improve language, memory and understanding in patients with
a severe form of dementia, Swedish researchers said on
Thursday.

Aricept, which is known generically as donepezil, is
marketed by Pfizer and Japan’s Eisai Co. Ltd..

When scientists at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden
compared the impact of the drug against a placebo in nearly 200
elderly patients they found that people given the drug were
able to function better, do daily tasks and were less reliant
on nursing care.

Their speech, memory and communication skills also
improved.

“We got impressive results,” Professor Bengt Winblad, who
led the 6-month study, the results of which were published
online by The Lancet medical journal.

“We now have a drug that will improve the intellectual
capacity of the elderly with severe Alzheimer’s disease,” he
added in an interview.

But in another trial a week ago, Eisai announced that 11
patients with a different form of dementia had died while
taking Aricept during a clinical trial.

Patients in that study suffered from vascular dementia,
which is caused by a stroke or diseased blood vessels and is
the second most common form of dementia after Alzheimer’s
disease. Nearly 650 patients in the trial were given the drug.
There were no deaths among the 326 people who received a
placebo.

Winblad emphasized that the drug is not a cure for the
illness but it does improve symptoms and enables Alzheimer’s
patients to function better.

An estimated 12 million people worldwide suffer from
Alzheimer’s disease. The number is expected to increase as the
population ages.

A team of international researchers recently predicted the
number of people suffering from dementia worldwide could reach
81 million by 2040.

The progressive illness robs people of their memory and
mental ability.