Memantine is a novel therapeutic agent that represents a new class of AD treatment options. Unpublished clinical trials using memantine at this stage yielded equivocal overall results. Grant Closeout. NAMENDA. Patients know that a drug exists for their loved one and believe it would be negligent to withhold it. That made me wonder whether he should try memantine. The minuscule benefits do not justify the costs for many patients. NAPROSYN AMNEAL $51.75. However there is no perfect way to know if substituting memantine for Aricept would be equivalent or better.Disclosure: I consult for both Pfizer and Forest Laboratories.It's sad that pharma's hype about Alzheimer drugs leads families that cannot afford these top shelf drugs to feel so guilty. Some of the older studies in "organic brain syndrome" used higher doses, but it is difficult to recommend more than 20 mg/d based on these sometimes poorly documented studies. Approximately 80 percent of patients in both treatment groups completed the studies. Our original studies have been referenced on 600+ peer-reviewed medical publications, including The Lancet, Mayo Clinic Proceedings, and Nature. None of the TEAEs were reported by >7 percent of memantine-treated patients or at a rate two times higher than in the placebo group (see Table below, or Panel two in Analyses of vital sign measurements, clinical laboratory data, and ECG results in the placebo-controlled trials revealed no clinically relevant differences between treatment groups. She has been taking Aricept for two years with good effect. Click the drug name for SA coverage criteria and form(s). He also received grant and clinical trials related funds from JNJ, Pfizer, Novartis.Kathleen Anne Welsh-Bohmer, Ph.D. There is an ongoing clinical trial to investigate the combination of rivastigmine and memantine, sponsored by Novartis.An open-label extension study to one of the original memantine clinical trials was reported by What is not clear is whether memantine helps patients with milder AD. Lon S. Schneider, M.D. About Center for Cancer Training (CCT) CCT Staff & Contact. Also, efficacy of 10 mg/day of memantine was shown in an earlier trial (Trial 9403) of 12-week duration in dementia patients. He is much calmer and is able to concentrate with minimal distraction. Rivastigmine is used to treat dementia (a brain disorder that affects the ability to remember, think clearly, communicate, and perform daily activities and may cause changes in mood and personality) in people with Alzheimer's disease (a brain disease that slowly destroys the memory and ability to think, learn, communicate and handle daily activities). Thus, the glutamatergic neurotransmitter pathway has been implicated in AD pathology and serves as a target for therapeutic intervention.Memantine is a novel therapeutic agent that represents a new class of AD treatment options. Research Grants . I can easily think of a gizillion better ways to spend money on drugs which do have an impact—like delivery of AIDS meds to the third world. Outcome measures were chosen to reflect the symptomatology of the more severe dementia patient. (Section 2.1 of the full briefing summarizes the history of the clinical development of memantine. About Memantine. Recently, the nursing home doubled the dose, and he has been much more agitated. The available NMDA antagonists, memantine, dextromethorphan, and amantadine, however, are probably less likely to worsen epilepsy although they have not been systematically evaluated for this effect. AD stages were identified as moderate to severe based on scores on the Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE scores of 3-14 in Trial 9605; 5-15 in Trial MD-02; and These three key memantine clinical trials are the first to evaluate the treatment of moderate-to-severe AD. His geriatric psychiatrist agreed to this once it was officially approved for use by the FDA. As of February 2003, there were over 600,000 patient-years of exposure to memantine.Memantine is a low-to-moderate affinity, uncompetitive N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist with strong voltage dependency and rapid blocking/unblocking kinetics. Some physicians use divalproex to treat agitation and aggression in people with dementia, although it is not officially approved for this use and some clinical trials have been not shown efficacy.Seizures occur in some people with advancing Alzheimer's dementia. He can follow abstract conversation with more ease as well as learn and retain new information.