ALZHEIMER'S DRUG FAILURE

A new study provides discouraging evidence a drug used for Alzheimer's to stem the progression of the disease may not be effective in the long run. The recently developed drugs called acetylcholinesterase inhibitors held a lot of hope.
And studies have shown they do work at first. But this study shows the drug does not stop the progression of the disease at all, questioning their long-term and overall benefit.

A new study provides discouraging evidence of a drug used to stem the progression of Alzheimer's may not be effective in the long run.

The recently developed drugs called acetylcholinesterase inhibitors held a lot of hope. While studies have shown they do work at first, a new study says they do not stop the progression of the disease at all.

"It's seeing someone you love for 57 years disintegrate in front of your eyes, and suddenly they're not there," says Rita Ruskin, whose husband Phil is fading, more rapidly now from Alzheimer's. Phil says, "It's the feeling you know you're going to go downhill. And you don't know how fast, and you're fighting it and it's not doing a bit of good."

Phil is taking reminyl, one of the class of drugs called acteylcholinesterase inhibitors. This new study published in the British journal The Lancet shows the drug donezepil, also known as aricept, another of the actylcholinesterase inhibitors, does not benefit patients or their caregivers in the long run.

But Dr. Giselle Wolfkein, Director of Geriatrics at Long Island Jewish Hospital, New York, believes the drugs are indeed effective and worthwhile. She states, "Our primary goal is to stabilize the progression of the memory loss. That is what the acetylcholinesterase inhibitors are known to do, they are proven to do so, there is currently on the market three agents, by different pharmaceutical companies, and all three agents work and they work in very similar ways."

Specifically, the drug did not slow the progression of Alzheimer's so that the person could avoid being placed in a long term care facility; it did not lower overall costs or delay death, and in the end, it didn't provide the caregiver any significant relief. The study's findings apply only to aricept, not to the other two, although the drugs work in the same way.

While this research confirms what previous studies have shown, that there is some modest improvement in function seen over the first two years, this study shows the benefits of aricept are then lost. Rita says, "I see no change at all. No slowing, nothing nothing."

Dr. Wolfkein disagrees, "That's not just the memory loss the drugs are helping to slow, it's the irritability, it's perhaps the paranoid swings, it's the agitation apathy on the part of the patients, medication can actually improve these symptoms that is why it is so very important to treat these patients."

Phil has his own opinion. "How much worse would it have been had I not taken it?"

Phil can still remember the good old days, specifically when he got the president Ronald Reagan's autograph. But there will be a time--relatively soon--when those memories will fade. "Someday they'll know how to cure this; it won't be in my lifetime. But I hope it's in their lifetime," says Phil.

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