Question:
My mother has Alzheimers.She has begun to forget the names of family members. A few days ago, I read an article by a neurologist from Anderson,Indiana which mentioned that currently there are two prescriptiondrugs for Alzheimers that he feels are quite promising. He wrote thatthese drugs can return the patient's memory to what it was like as longago as ten years. His article did not mention the names of these twomedications. If anyone has any ideas on what drugs he's referring to,please give me some advise.

Answer: Just a guess, but could the 2 mystery drugs be Tacrine and Aricept? Tacrine issaid to be very hard on the liver and not particularly effective for memory.Aricept, just out, is said to be more promising but also no panacea. Cananyone comment further on Aricept?

Aricept has been shown to be most effective in suppressing some of thesymptoms of Alzheimers Disease.Some of my clients taking Aricept havereported an overall intellectual improvement, which they feel has improvedtheir memory and they also describe feeling more alert. This is also theview shared by their carers. Unfortunately the downside to this is thatbecause the drug works directly on the neurotransmitters within the brain itmay keep the person awake at night. Other problems appear to be diarrhoeaand nausea which subside with compliance two to three weeks later.There isalso limited research to determine the efficacy of Aricept after six monthsof treatment.Tacrine has recently been given a licence for production within the U.K. butas already stated, there is a high probability of liver disease associatedwith its metabolism.What is more encouraging is the introduction of more drugs similar instructure to Aricept but acting in a slightly different way. Hopefully thesemay be available early 98.Trials are currently on the go to look at the use of Aricept in helpingpeople suffering from multi-infarct( arteriosclerotic) dementia.