Question:
I have a friend, whose husband has been given Alzheimer's medication by hisGP, after describing some symptoms to the doctor. No tests were run, norecommendation to a neurologist, nothing but a prescription. This doesn'tseem right to me, but I have no experience with this disease and have beenasked to help find information for my friend. So, my first questionsare.....

1. Is there a test to diagnose Alzheimer's?2. How reliable is it?3. Is Alzheimer's typically diagnosed without aid of testing?4. Are current Alzheimer's medications effective?5. What are some of the side effects of alzheimers medication? That should do for now. I will contact my friend for the name of themedication, in case that is needed.

Answer: 1/ Recently, PET imaging has been shown more useful than traditionalmethods (MRI/CT)

2/ I don't recall numbers

3/ It's possible that the doctor tested him for orientation wrttime/place, etc. but in my experience, he should be referred to aneurologist. Additionally, blood work should be performed to rule outother possible causes. Two simple tests include the Mini-Mental StateExam (MMSE) and clock-drawing...they *should* be performed under theguidance of a doctor

4/ Effective for the treatment of symptoms but not a cure. There is someevidence that NSAIDS (e.g., aspirin and ibuprofen) may be useful inthe treatment of AD but you have to be concerned with the bloodthinning effect if he's on other medications. I assume that he's onan acetylcholinesterase inhibitor (e.g., Reminyl, Aricept, Exelon,etc.) to which a newer drug called Namenda may be added. There havebeen some reports here, however, that suggest the addition of Namendato later-stage dementia is not a good thing.

5/ "The most common adverse events, defined as those occurring at afrequency of at least 5% in patients receiving 10 mg/day and twice theplacebo rate. These include nausea, diarrhea, insomnia, vomiting,muscle cramp, fatigue and anorexia. These adverse events were oftenof mild intensity and transient, resolving during continued Aricepttreatment without the need for dose modification.

There is evidence to suggest that the frequency of these commonadverse events may be affected by the rate of titration. An open-labelstudy was conducted with 269 patients who received placebo in the 15and 30-week studies. These patients were titrated to a dose of 10mg/day over a 6-week period. The rates of common adverse events werelower than those seen in patients titrated to 10 mg/day over one weekin the controlled clinical trials and were comparable to those seen inpatients on 5 mg/day."