Treatment of Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease —Corbett 2012

This is an audio summary of the article “Treatment of Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease” by Corbett in 2012. Behavior and mental symptoms of dementia (BPSD) are common in people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and other dementias. They often put the person with dementia and others at risk and make it hard for doctors to treat them. There is more and more evidence that simple psychological interventions and pain treatment are useful as a first-line management strategy before drugs. Most doctors prescribe atypical antipsychotics, which have a small but significant effect on aggression in the short term (over 6–12 weeks) but less of an effect in longer-term therapy. Also, there have been more and more worries about the possibility of bad things happening, like a stroke or death. Memantine, carbamazepine, citalopram, and prazosin are the medicines that show the most promise as possible alternatives to atypical antipsychotics. Large, prospective, randomized, placebo-controlled trials are needed to find out how well these agents work as treatments for BPSD. This is the end of this informational audio track on “Treatment of Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease” by Corbett.

Corbett, A., Smith, J., Creese, B., & Ballard, C. (2012). Treatment of Behavioral and Psychological Symptoms of Alzheimer’s Disease. Current Treatment Options in Neurology, 14(2), 113–125. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11940-012-0166-9