Memantine New Alzheimers Drug
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The research based article, "Memantine in Moderate-to-Severe Alzheimer's Disease," was obtained form the April 3, 2003 issue of the "New England Journal of Medicine." The article explains in detail the research performed on memantine, an uncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate antagonist drug, for the treatment of Alzheimer's disease and the outcomes of the study. This research was used to determine whether memantine would be approved for use in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease in the United States.
Alzheimer's disease affects approximately fifteen million people in the world (~four million in the US), and this number is expected to increase with the increase in life expectance. Currently there are four cholinesterase inhibitors approved for treatment of mild-to-moderate Alzheimer's disease. These drugs are donepezil, galantamine, rivastigmine, and tacrine. However, there were no approved treatments for severe Alzheimer's disease. Severe Alzheimer's disease is a phase of this progressive disease that causes much distress for patient, and even more on the patient's caregiver. The industry-sponsored study illustrated in the "New England Journal of Medicine" had U.S...