Three kinds of treatments are currently in practice -

1. Behavior management
2. Drug therapy
3. Emotional support for the patient’s caregiver.

The last has been the most successful to date thanks to the untiring work of individuals and to the support provided by organizations such as the Alzheimer’s Association. Behavior therapy holds no cures but it offers great improvement in the day-to-day management of patients with Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia symptoms. For instance, Veronique Breuil and her colleagues at Hopital Broca in Paris have reported some behavioral benefits following a “cognitive stimulation program.”

Research on drugs that might enhance Alzheimer patients’ performance on memory and language tasks is moving at a rapid pace. A computerized search restricted to a psychology database revealed 262 studies involving drugs and Alzheimer’s disease just in the last ten years. A lot of work is being done with cholinesterase inhibitors (e.g., aminoacridines such as tacrine and velnacrine). These can prevent the rapid degrading of acetylcholine, an important neurotransmitter that Alzheimer patients typically have in reduced amounts. The logic is that a patient’s limited supply of acetylcholine would have a better chance of doing its job if it can be kept from depleting so rapidly. There is also a lot of encouraging research on the memory benefits of glucose, and some promising work on delayed onset of symptoms with anti-intammatories. With the number of new drugs being developed, the need is even stronger for better tests to positively identify Alzheimer’s disease.

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