Drug treatments for Alzheimer's disease
There's no drug to cure dementia yet, but it's often possible to relieve some symptoms. Learn more about the main drug treatments for Alzheimer's disease.
- You are here: Drug treatments for Alzheimer's disease
- How do drugs for Alzheimer's disease work?
- Effects of Alzheimer's disease drugs
- Prescribing Alzheimer's disease drugs
- Are Alzheimer's disease drugs effective for other types of dementia?
- Doses for Alzheimer's disease drugs
- Starting and stopping treatment
- Research into new treatments
- Drug treatments for Alzheimer's disease - other resources
Drug treatments for Alzheimer's disease
There are no drug treatments that can cure Alzheimerās disease or any other common type of dementia.
However, there are medicines for Alzheimerās disease that can ease symptoms for a while, or slow down their progression, in some people. These drugs do not slow down or stop the progression of the underlying disease in the brain.
Medication can be an important part of a personās treatment for Alzheimerās disease. However, drugs can only help with some symptoms and should only be one part of a personās care. Information and advice, activities, support and treatments that donāt involve drugs are just as important in helping someone to live well with Alzheimerās disease. A person with Alzheimerās disease can look at The dementia guide: Living well after diagnosis, or Alzheimerās disease: Understanding your diagnosis for more information.
Managing symptoms with drugs
Drugs can sometimes help with behavioral and psychological symptoms.
What are the main drugs used to treat Alzheimer's disease?
Many drugs have at least two names:
- a name for the main substance in the medicine (such as paracetamol)
- a brand name (such as Panadol or Calpol).
Drugs are sometimes made with only the name of the substance (such as paracetamol) on the packaging. There are four drugs for Alzheimerās disease:
Substance name | Examples of brand names (UK): |
---|---|
Donepezil |
Aricept |
Rivastigmine |
Exelon |
Galantamine |
Reminyl, Acumor XL*, Galsya XL*, Gatalin XL* |
Memantine |
Ebixa, Nemdatine, Alzhok |
*XL refers to a drug that is in a slow-release form. See Taking the drugs.
Donepezil, rivastigmine and galantamine work in a similar way and are all known as āacetylcholinesterase inhibitorsā. (This is often shortened to ācholinesterase inhibitorsā.)
Memantine works differently to the other drugs, and is known as an āNMDA receptor antagonistā.
The next page tells you more about how these drugs work.