Psychiatria pre prax 2/2002

Current trends in the cognitive pharmacotherapy of Alzheimer´s disease

The cognitive pharmacotherapy of Alzheimer´s disease attempts to influence basic well-known ethiopatogenetic aspects of this disease. The attention is now being directed towards the improvement of acetylcholinergic transmission. Widely used acetylcholinesterase inhibitors are the first therapeutical choice in mild and moderate cases of Alzheimer´s disease. This treatment can be combined with other means, which might be theoretically substantiated, but they do not necessarily bring significant impact in practice. These therapeutical modalities do not sometimes correspond to „evidence based“ medicine. The use of other drugs, that are mentioned in this article, have been shown to improve brain metabolism, to control the uptake of free oxygen radicals, to modify inflammatory changes in brain, to increase output of nervous growth hormones and decrease the excessive flow of calcium into neurons.

Keywords: Alzheimer´s disease, acetylcholinesterase inhibitors, nootropic drugs, free oxygen radical scavengers, calcium channels blocking agents, nerve growth factors.