Memantine for dementia

McShane R, Areosa Sastre A, Minakaran N

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Summary

Some evidence of efficacy of memantine for dementia

Memantine has a small beneficial, clinically detectable effect on cognitive function and functional decline measured at 6 months in patients with moderate to severe Alzheimer's Disease (AD). In patients with mild to moderate dementia, the small beneficial effect on cognition was not clinically detectable in those with vascular dementia and barely detectable in those with AD. It is well tolerated. Slightly fewer patients with moderate to severe AD taking memantine develop agitation, but there is no evidence either way about whether it has an effect on agitation which is already present.

This is a Cochrane review abstract and plain language summary, prepared and maintained by The Cochrane Collaboration, currently published in The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2008 Issue 3, Copyright © 2008 The Cochrane Collaboration. Published by John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.. The full text of the review is available in The Cochrane Library (ISSN 1464-780X).
This record should be cited as: McShane R, Areosa Sastre A, Minakaran N. Memantine for dementia. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews 2006, Issue 2. Art. No.: CD003154. DOI: 10.1002/14651858.CD003154.pub5.

This version first published online: January 20. 2003
Date of last substantive update: February 22. 2006

Abstract

Background

Memantine, a low affinity antagonist to glutamate NMDA receptors, may prevent excitatory neurotoxicity in dementia.

Objectives

To determine efficacy and safety of memantine for people with Alzheimer's disease (AD), vascular (VD) and mixed dementia.

Search strategy

The Specialized Register of the Cochrane Dementia and Cognitive Improvement Group was searched on 8th February 2006. This register contains references from all major healthcare databases and many ongoing trial databases and is updated regularly. In addition, the search engines Copernic and Google were used to identify unpublished trials through inspection of the websites of licensing bodies like the FDA , EMEA and NICE and of companies' websites (Lundbeck, Merz, Forest, Suntori etc) and clinical trials registries.

Selection criteria

Double-blind, parallel group, placebo-controlled, randomized trials of memantine in people with dementia.

Data collection and analysis

Data were pooled where possible. Intention-to-treat (ITT) and observed case (OC) analyses are reported.

Main results

1. Moderate to severe AD. Two out of three six month studies show a small beneficial effect of memantine. Pooled data indicate a beneficial effect at six months on cognition (2.97 points on the 100 point SIB, 95% CI 1.68 to 4.26, P < 0.00001), activities of daily living (1.27 points on the 54 point ADCS-ADLsev, 95% CI 0.44 to 2.09, P = 0.003) and behaviour (2.76 points on the 144 point NPI, 95% CI 0.88 to 4.63, P=0.004), supported by clinical impression of change (0.28 points on the 7 point CIBIC+, 95% CI 0.15 to 0.41, P < 0.0001).
2. Mild to moderate AD. Pooled data from three unpublished studies indicate a marginal benefical effect at six months on ITT cognition (0.99 points on the 70 point ADAS-Cog, 95% CI 0.21 to 1.78, P = 0.01) which was barely detectable clinically (0.13 CIBIC+ points, 95% CI 0.01 to 0.25, P = 0.03) but no effect on behaviour, activities of daily living or OC analysis of cognition.
3. Mild to moderate vascular dementia. Pooled data from two six month studies indicated a small beneficial effect of memantine on cognition (1.85 ADAS-Cog points, 95% CI 0.88 to 2.83, P = 0.0002), and behaviour (0.84 95% CI 0.06 to 0.91, P = 0.03) but this was not supported by clinical global measures.
4. Patients taking memantine were slightly less likely to develop agitation (134/1739, 7.7% versus 175/1873, 9.3% OR 0.78, 95% CI 0.61 to 0.99, P = 0.04). This effect was slightly larger, but still small, in moderate to severe AD (58/506 [12%] vs 88/499 [18%]; OR = 0.6, 95% CI 0.42 to 0.86, P = 0.005). There is no evidence either way about whether it has an effect on agitation which is already present.
5. Memantine is well tolerated.

Authors' conclusions

Memantine has a small beneficial effect at six months in moderate to severe AD. In patients with mild to moderate dementia, the small beneficial effect on cognition was not clinically detectable in those with vascular dementia and was detectable in those with AD. Memantine is well tolerated.

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