First Study of Aricept(reg) Exclusively in African American Patients With Mild to Moderate Alzheimer's Disease Suggests Benefits of Treatment in This Population.
Alzheimer's Incidence Up to Three Times Higher in African Americans; Patients Tend to Go Longer Without Diagnosis.
African American patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease (AD) treated with ARICEPT(reg) (donepezil HCl tablets) experienced significant improvements in cognition and global function from baseline, according to a study presented at the 57th annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology. Global function is defined as the overall assessment of behavior, activities of daily living and cognition. This open-label study evaluated 126 African American patients taking ARICEPT for 12 weeks.
The incidence of Alzheimer's disease has been reported to be two to three times higher in African Americans than in Caucasians. Yet, African Americans tend to be diagnosed during a later stage of AD, when cognitive function has already substantially declined. While African American patients have participated in previous ARICEPT clinical trials, the Treatment of Alzheimer's in African American Patients (TAAAP) study was the first clinical trial to assess the benefit of ARICEPT treatment exclusively in this population.
"These findings are important because they suggest the benefits of treatment with ARICEPT in African American patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease," said Patrick Griffith, M.D., the study's lead investigator and professor of clinical medicine (Neurology) at Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta. "This should serve as a call to action for African American patients, caregivers and their physicians to watch for early signs of Alzheimer's disease symptoms, such as memory loss, and intervene with treatment."
The Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) score, which measures cognitive function, significantly improved from baseline (p
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