Drugs for Alzheimer's disease: are they effective?
Year: 2010
Type: article
Abstract: Alzheimer’s disease (AD), a devastating neurodegenerative disorder, is the leading cause of dementia in the U.S. and in other developed countries. Patients experience progressive, disabling cognitive impairment and eventually require constant care and supervision. Approximately 96% of AD patients are elderly, but the absolute number of patients younger than 65 years of age has grown with the arrival of the “baby-boomer” generation (those born between 1946 and 1964) to the cusp of old age.1
AD is the sixth leading cause of death for all ages and the fifth leading cause of death for those 65 years of age and older in the U.S.1,2 This disorder affects approximately 5% of people 65 to 74 years of age and almost 50% of people older than 85 years of age, at an annual cost of approximately $148 billion in the U.S. alone.1 The problem will become much greater as baby-boomers age. An estimated 5.3 million persons in the U.S. have AD. This figure is projected to grow to 13.2 million by 2050.1
Given the impact of AD, there is an urgent need for effective therapies. Currently, five drugs have been approved by the FDA for use in AD, including four cholinesterase inhibitors and one N-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist (see Drug Therapy). The five medications are widely utilized, and several respected organizations have endorsed their use.3 As of this writing, no alternatives to these medications are available. These five drugs are supportive or palliative rather than curative or disease-modifying therapies, and they do not appear to alter the final outcome of the disease.3 The total dollars expended on these treatments in the U.S. alone exceeds $1 billion annually, and these therapies continue to be heavily promoted by their respective manufacturers.4 Nevertheless, the ongoing debate over their effectiveness continues, especially in view of the costs incurred.5
In this article, we review the evidence supporting the use of these agents and explore the controversies involved. This discussion is timely in view of the national debate on health care reform, because it involves the need to balance costs and benefits on an enormous scale. Similar debates may be expected in many other areas of medicine.
Source: PubMed Central
Language: English
Subfield: Cellular and Molecular Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W1777314638