Poster Presentations

Session Title: Alzheimer's Disease (AD) including Non-Cognitive Aspects
Presentation Date: Friday, March 14 – Saturday, March 15, 2009

EFFECTS OF MEMANTINE ON LANGUAGE AND FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION IN PATIENTS WITH MODERATE TO SEVERE ALZHEIMER´S DISEASE: A POOLED ANALYSIS

J. Saxton¹, M. Tocco², R.K. Hofbauer², S.M. Graham^2
1Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, Department of Neurology, Pittsburgh, United States, ²Forest Research Institute, Jersey City, United States

Background and objective: Memantine is an uncompetitive NMDA receptor antagonist, approved in the US, Europe and in many countries worldwide for the treatment of moderate to severe Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this post hoc analysis, the effects of memantine on language and functional communication in patients with moderate to severe AD were analyzed by pooling data from two previously published 24-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled trials of memantine (20mg/day): van Dyck et al, 2007, and Tariot et al, 2004.
Methods: Language items from the Severe Impairment Battery (SIB) were grouped into three subscales: Naming, Reading/Writing, and Comprehension/Repetition/Discourse. Similarly, a Functional Communication score was created using caregiver-reported items that assessed verbal and non-verbal communication abilities from the 19-item AD Cooperative Study - Activities of Daily Living scale (ADCS-ADL₁₉) and the Behavioral Rating Scale for Geriatric Patients (BGP). For each measure, treatment groups were compared in terms of change from Baseline at Week 24 (LOCF, OC, MMRM). A third memantine study in moderate to severe AD (Reisberg et al, 2003) did not use the BGP and thus was excluded.
Results: At Week 24, patients receiving memantine (20 mg/day) significantly outperformed placebo-treated patients on the SIB Naming subscale (OC: P=0.035; LOCF: P=0.032; MMRM: P=0.028), and on the Functional Communication score (OC: P=0.004; LOCF: P=0.002; MMRM: P=0.004).
Conclusions: Compared to placebo, memantine treatment was associated with a statistically significant improvement in naming and in caregiver-reported functional communication abilities.