Alzheimer’s Disease: Current and Future Treatments. A Review

Authors

  • Evelyn Chou King’s College London, England.

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/ijms.2014.85

Keywords:

Alzheimer’s disease, disease-modifying drugs, beta-secretase inhibitors, gamma-secretase inhibitors, cholinergic, amyloid, tau

Abstract

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a currently incurable neurodegenerative disorder whose treatment poses a big challenge. Proposed causes of AD include the cholinergic, amyloid and tau hypotheses. Current therapeutic treatments have been aimed at dealing with the neurotransmitter imbalance. These include cholinesterase inhibitors and N-Methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) antagonists. However, current therapeutics have been unable to halt AD progression. Much research has gone into the development of disease-modifying drugs to interfere with the course of the disease. Approaches include secretase inhibition and immunotherapy aimed at reducing plaque deposition. However, these have not been successful in curing AD as yet. It is believed that the main reason why therapeutics have failed to work is that treatment begins too late in the course of the disease. The future of AD treatment thus appears to lie with prevention rather than cure. In this article, current therapeutics and, from there, the future of AD treatment are discussed.

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Author Biography

Evelyn Chou, King’s College London, England.

About the author: Evelyn Chou is an intercalating BSc student, after 2nd year MBBS.

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Published

2014-05-14

How to Cite

Chou, E. (2014). Alzheimer’s Disease: Current and Future Treatments. A Review. International Journal of Medical Students, 2(2), 56–63. https://doi.org/10.5195/ijms.2014.85

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Vol. 2 No. 2 (2014)

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Review

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