Efficacy of memantine for elderly patients in the mild stage of Alzheimer's and vascular dementia in Ukraine

Abstract

The aim of our research was to investigate the effectiveness of memantine treatment of Ukrainian patients with Alzheimer's (AD) and vascular dementia (VaD) depending on existing ApoE genotype.MethodsIt was a complex examination of 60 elderly persons (72.40 ± 1.35 years) with mild stage of AD and VD. The effectiveness of response to (20 mg/day) memantine intake was studied during the first 3 months of treatment. Efficacy of short-term treatment was determined by MMSE and the numbers of positive statistically significant changes ADAS-cog subtests. Genetic ApoE polymorphism was investigated too (using the of the PCR technique). Statistical Anova analysis was done.ResultsAfter 3 months of treatment significant changes in the overall score of Adas-cog was observed in both groups with some differences in subscale profiles. For AD patients, statistically positive changes (P < 0.05) were found in comprehension of spoken language, naming objects, commands, ideational praxis and delayed recall subtests. For VaD patients, statistically positive changes (P < 0.05) were found in comprehension of spoken language, naming objects, word finding difficulty and delayed recall subtests. There was established a significant prevalence of individuals with genotype ɛ4/ɛ4 among patients with AD compared with patients with VD. The main differences, according to the memantine efficacy treatment in carriers ApoE3 and ApoE4 genotypes, were in remembering test instructions subtest.ConclusionsThe memantine treatment efficacy in AD and VaD patients in mild stage of dementia was not significantly associated with an existing of Apo-E genotype polymorphism.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.