Alzheimer Disease/Dementia

In patients with Alzheimer’s disease with clinically significant apathy, treatment with methylphenidate for 6 months in ADMET 2 was associated with a modest improvement in apathy.

A retrospective cohort study found that newly diagnosed depression increased the risk of Alzheimer’s disease in older individuals, especially when the depression was severe.

In patients with type 2 diabetes, a younger age of onset is associated with an increased risk of developing dementia.

According to the recent Study of Mirtazapine for Agitated Behaviors in Dementia (SYMBAD) trial, there was no improvement in agitation in patients with Alzheimer disease taking mirtazapine compared with placebo. Furthermore, the treatment group had more deaths than the placebo group, and the investigators suggested that mirtazapine should no longer be used for agitation in patients with dementia.

Researchers developed a model to predict when cognitively unimpaired individuals who have brain amyloidosis would develop symptoms of Alzheimer dementia using positron emission tomography scans for amyloid accumulation.

Discontinuation of pimavanserin for dementia-related psychosis was associated with a higher rate of relapse compared with continuation, according to a recent randomized discontinuation trial that was stopped early for efficacy.

Elderly women with cerebrovascular disease had a significantly increased risk for dementia if they took calcium supplements, a retrospective analysis of 2 studies showed.

A phase 2 clinical trial of the investigational agent idalopirdine (Lu AE5854), a selective 5-HT₆ receptor antagonist, as adjunctive treatment to the cholinesterase inhibitor donepezil has demonstrated improved cognition in patients with mild-to-moderate Alzheimer’s disease. The results also showed a trend toward ameliorating declines in function and global clinical status, researchers reported at the 2016 American Academy of Neurology annual meeting.

In a series of debates at the 2016 American Academy of Neurology annual meeting, expert physicians debated current and controversial issues in neuroscience. David S. Knopman, MD, FAAN, Professor of Neurology, Alzheimer’s Disease Research Center, Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN, advocated for the benefits of cognitive-enhancing activities; Kaycee M. Sink, MD, MAS, Medical Director, Kulynych Memory Assessment Clinic, Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, Winston-Salem, NC, contended that there is a lack of controlled studies to guide clinical recommendations.