Drugs for dementia
About 10 per cent of men and women over 65, and nearly half of those over 80, have Alzheimer's disease
In Short
- Efficacy achievable with current drugs on market for AD patients is at best modest
- Cholinergic receptor molecules are proving to be better targets for drug development in the treatment of AD
- Drugs to slow or stop AD are now a realistic prospect
In 1906 at a psychiatric clinic in Munich, Alois Alzheimer, a 42-year old German doctor, looked down his microscope at brain tissue from a 51-year old woman (Frau Auguste D) who had died in a local mental asylum following a number of years of progressive dementia. He observed structures previously described in the brain of elderly people - neuritic or senile plaques - alongside structures contained within brain cells that had not been previously observed - neurofibrillary tangles. Both of these microscopic changes are used to characterise the form of dementia that is now known as Alzheimer's disease (AD).
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