MONDAY, Nov. 8, 2004 (HealthDayNews) -- Memory problems that prevent multiple sclerosis sufferers from doing their jobs are extremely troublesome and disheartening, say doctors, but a drug geared for Alzheimer's patients may offer some help.
Doctors at Stony Brook University Hospital in New York found patients who took donepezil for six months improved their scores on memory tests by 14 percent, compared to those who took a placebo. Further, 66 percent of the patients on donepezil felt their memory had improved, double the number who reported improvement while taking a placebo.
"We were thrilled to see what a nice result we had, and I do believe that this has the potential of changing the standard of care in multiple sclerosis, but this is just one study and has to be replicated," said study author and neurologist Dr. Lauren Krupp, director the Multiple Sclerosis Care Center at Stony Brook.
The results appear in the Nov. 9 issue of Neurology.
Dr. Paul Aisen, a neurology professor at Georgetown University Medical School, said it's encouraging but not surprising that donepezil had this effect among multiple sclerosis (MS) patients.
"Even though donepezil was designed for Alzheimer's, its efficacy does not have to be limited to that disease. It is used in vascular dementia," he said.
"But," he added, "people with MS have been bothered for a long time by memory loss -- it is one of the very troubling symptoms of MS -- and this is the first demonstration that we can help with this symptom."
"It's not unreasonable that donepezil should work with MS patients," said Dr. Hillel Grossman, director of the Alzheimer's Disease Research Center at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, because it could address the same pathways that affect memory in both diseases.
For the study, Krupp and her colleagues recruited 69 MS sufferers with mild cognitive difficulties, based on results from standardized tests. They ranged in age from 18 to 55 years, and agreed to participate in a double-blind clinical trial, which meant that neither the patients nor the researchers knew who was taking donepezil and who was taking the placebo.
They took 5 milligrams of the drug daily, increasing to 10 milligrams by week four, and continued for 24 weeks.
Krupp said that among the participants were an accountant who was having trouble doing his calculations in a timely manner, a schoolteacher who was forgetting the names of her students, and the wife of a busy executive who could no longer arrange their busy social life.
"These are not people with Alzheimer's. They are still active in the world of work, and the kind of things that really bother them are invisible and not understood by husbands, wives or co-workers," she said.
All three of these people were among those who took donepezil, and all three experienced memory improvement significant enough to allow them to resume their ordinary tasks, Krupp said.
Krupp and her colleagues are now replicating their study at four hospital centers with twice the number of participants.
In an editorial that accompanies the study, Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy said that between 40 percent and 65 percent of MS sufferers report memory problems, for which there is no proven drug treatment, so this study "represents a major advance in the search for treatments."
But he cautioned that several long-term questions still needed to be answered, such as the proper dosage, how long the treatment should continue, and what long-term risks the medication could entail.
More information
Learn about multiple sclerosis and its treatment from the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
