Drugs for Alzheimer's agitation often ineffective, study says

Many drugs commonly used to calm the agitation, delusions and other behavioral problems associated with advanced Alzheimer's disease don't work well, a study reports today.

As many as 80% of Alzheimer's patients' symptoms include not only memory loss but also aggression, wandering, hallucinations and other disruptive behavior.

"As the disease progresses, the agitation and other problems are very difficult for families to deal with," says John Morris, an Alzheimer's expert at Washington University in St. Louis.

The study, published in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that antidepressants such as Prozac and mood stabilizers such as Tegretol offer little or no relief for the behavioral symptoms of Alzheimer's. These drugs were designed for younger patients and not for older Alzheimer's patients, says William Thies of the Chicago-based Alzheimer's Association.

But doctors are under enormous pressure to prescribe drugs to treat such behaviors. "Caregivers want a magic pill," says Kaycee Sink, lead author of the paper. "What our study showed is that there is no magic pill."

Sink, who is a geriatric expert at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., and her colleagues analyzed 29 studies on drugs typically used to quell behavioral problems in Alzheimer's disease.

The team found that drugs approved to treat the memory difficulties of Alzheimer's did seem to ease the behavioral problems. But Morris says patients who are very disruptive often don't get enough relief from these drugs, called cholinesterase inhibitors.

•	Drugs for Alzheimer's agitation often ineffective, study says Antidepressants, mood stabilizers not designed for older patients USA Today, Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2005 Byline: Kathleen Fackelmann

•	Alzheimer's Troubling Behaviors Hard to Treat Forbes.com, Wednesday, Feb. 2, 2005 Byline: Serena Gordon, HealthDay Reporter

	Story also ran in 3 others:  RedNova.com, HealthDayNews and HealthCentral.com