Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Comparative Study
. 2009 Jun;80(6):600-7.
doi: 10.1136/jnnp.2008.158964. Epub 2009 Feb 9.

Long-term effects of the concomitant use of memantine with cholinesterase inhibition in Alzheimer disease

O L Lopez  1 , J T Becker, A S Wahed, J Saxton, R A Sweet, D A Wolk, W Klunk, S T Dekosky
Affiliations
Comparative Study

Long-term effects of the concomitant use of memantine with cholinesterase inhibition in Alzheimer disease

O L Lopez et al. J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2009 Jun.

Erratum in

  • J Neurol Neurosurg Psychiatry. 2009 Sep 1;80(9):1056

Abstract

Background: Patients using cholinesterase inhibitors (ChEIs) have a delay in nursing home (NH) admission compared with those who were not using the medication. There are no long-term studies of the effects of memantine in combination with ChEIs use in Alzheimer disease (AD). This study was conducted to examine the effects of ChEIs and memantine on time to death and time to NH admission.

Methods: Time to NH admission and death was examined in 943 probable AD patients who had at least a 1-year follow-up evaluation. Of these patients, 140 (14.9%) used both ChEIs and memantine, 387 (41%) [corrected] used only ChEIs, and 416 (44.1%) [corrected] used neither. The mean (SD) follow-up time was 62.3 (35.8) months. The analysis was conducted with multivariable Cox proportional hazard models controlling for critical covariates (ie, age, education level, gender, severity of the dementia, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, heart disease, psychiatric symptoms and use of psychotropic medications).

Results: Compared with those who never used cognitive enhancers, patients who used ChEIs had a significant delay in NH admission (HR: 0.37, 95% CI 0.27 to 0.49); this effect was significantly augmented with the addition of memantine (HR: 0.29, 95% CI 0.11 to 0.72) (memantine+ChEI vs ChEI alone). ChEIs alone, or in combination with memantine had no significant association on time to death.

Conclusions: This observational study revealed that the addition of the NMDA receptor antagonist memantine to the treatment of AD with ChEI significantly altered the treated history of AD by extending time to nursing home admission.

PubMed Disclaimer

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Flow chart of the patients examined from 1983 to 2004, and the number of patients in each cohort. AD, Alzheimer disease; ChEIs, cholinesterase inhibitors.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Time to nursing home admission in Cohort 1. ChEIs, cholinesterase inhibitors.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Time to nursing home admission in Cohort 2. ChEIs, cholinesterase inhibitors.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Hebert LE, Scherr PA, Bienias JL, et al. Alzheimer’s disease in the US population. Prevalence estimates using the 2000 census. Arch Neurol. 2003;60:1119–1122. - PubMed
    1. Jorm AF, Jolley D. The incidence of dementia: a meta-analysis. Neurology. 1998;51:728–733. - PubMed
    1. Brookmeyer R, Gray S, Kawas C. Projections of Alzheimer’s disease in the United States and the public health impact of delaying disease onset. Am J Public Health. 1998;88:1337–1342. - PMC - PubMed
    1. Lopez OL, Wisniewski SR, Becker JT, et al. Psychiatric medication and abnormal behavior as predictors of progression in probable Alzheimer’s disease. Arch Neurol. 1999;56:1266–1272. - PubMed
    1. Eaker ED, Vierkant RA, Mickel SF. Predictors of nursing home admission and/or death in incident Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia cases compared to controls: a population-based study. J Clin Epidemiol. 2002;55:462–468. - PubMed

Publication types

MeSH terms