A widely used drug for Alzheimer's disease may have minimal benefits
The new study has sparked controversy as its main findings clash with drug-company funded studies that suggested worthwhile benefits. But Richard Gray and his colleagues at the University of Birmingham, UK, say that those previous trials of donepezil have focused on outcomes which are of "questionable relevance" to patients.
Gray's study backed the trials' findings that donepezil gives small improvements in patients' scores in mental and functional ability tests for the first two years of treatment. But the drug did not have an impact on patients' quality of life, failing to delay the time to institutionalisation, or the progression of disability.
"Doctors and healthcare funders need to question whether it would be better to invest in more doctors and nurses and better social support rather than spending huge sums of money prescribing these expensive drugs," Gray told The Guardian. FULL ARTICLE
The New Scientist
Un medicament folosit pe scarã largã pentru Boala Alzheimer poate avea beneficii minime - A widely used drug for Alzheimer's disease may have minimal benefits - articole medicale engleza - startsanatate