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Taking the Next Steps in the Treatment of Alzheimer's Disease: Disease-Modifying Agents

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 November 2014

Stephen Salloway
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Extract

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most prevalent neurodegenerative disorder in the United States and the number of AD patients is increasing at an alarming rate. There is no cure for AD and the currently available treatments are symptomatic, providing only limited effects on disease pathophysiology and progression. An overwhelming need exists for therapies that can slow or halt this debilitating disease process. Disease modification in AD has been defined from patient-focused, regulatory, and neurobiological perspectives. The latter two of these perspectives rely largely on an interruption of the disease process and a clear demonstration of this interruption. As defined by Cummings, a disease-modifying treatment is a “pharmacologic treatment that retards the underlying process of AD by intervening in the neurobiological processes that constitute the pathology and pathophysiology of the disease and lead to cell death or dysfunction.” By this definition, the burden of confirmatory study is placed on any new treatment for which the claim of “disease modification” is to be made (Slide 1).

Type
Expert Review Supplement
Information
CNS Spectrums , Volume 13 , Issue S3: Next Steps in Alzheimer's Disease: Improvements in Diagnosis and Treatment , March 2008 , pp. 11 - 14
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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