Current pharmacologic treatment of dementia: a clinical practice guideline from the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Family Physicians.

PubMed

Current pharmacologic treatment of dementia: a clinical practice guideline from the American College of Physicians and the American Academy of Family Physicians.

Qaseem A, Snow V, Cross JT Jr, Forciea MA, Hopkins R Jr, Shekelle P, Adelman A, Mehr D, Schellhase K, Campos-Outcalt D, Santaguida P, Owens DK, American College of Physicians/American Academy of Family Physicians Panel on Dementia

Ann Intern Med. 2008;148(5):370.

DESCRIPTION The American College of Physicians and American Academy of Family Physicians developed this guideline to present the available evidence on current pharmacologic treatment of dementia.

METHODS The targeted literature search included evidence related to the effectiveness of 5 U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved pharmacologic therapies for dementia for outcomes in the domains of cognition, global function, behavior/mood, and quality of life/activities of daily living. RECOMMENDATION 1: Clinicians should base the decision to initiate a trial of therapy with a cholinesterase inhibitor or memantine on individualized assessment. (Grade: weak recommendation, moderate-quality evidence.) RECOMMENDATION 2: Clinicians should base the choice of pharmacologic agents on tolerability, adverse effect profile, ease of use, and cost of medication. The evidence is insufficient to compare the effectiveness of different pharmacologic agents for the treatment of dementia. (Grade: weak recommendation, low-quality evidence.) RECOMMENDATION 3: There is an urgent need for further research on the clinical effectiveness of pharmacologic management of dementia.
American College of Physicians and University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19106, USA. [email protected]

PMID 18316755