A quantitative analysis of the literature on cholinergic enhancement of memory function in Alzheimer's disease showed that such therapies do have an effect if dosages are individualised. Treatments that combine a precursor with an anticholinesterase, however, appear to be the most promising for clinically useful results. The number of studies that have evaluated this combination treatment is small, but the present analysis indicates that further clinical trials would be most worthwhile.
References
1.
BlassJ. P.WekslerM. E. (1983), Toward an effective treatment of Alzheimer's disease, Annals of Internal Medicine98, 251–3.
GlassG. V.McGrawB.SmithM. L. (1981), Meta-analysis in Social Research, Sage, Beverly Hills.
4.
HedgesL. V. (1981), Distribution theory for Glass's estimator of effect size and related estimators, Journal of Educational Statistics6, 107–28.
5.
JohnsC. A.GreenwaldB. S.MohsR. G. (1983), The cholinergic treatment strategy in aging and senile dementia, Psychopharmacology Bulletin19, 185–97.
6.
NieN. H.HullC. H.JenkinsJ. G. (1975), Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, 2nd edn, McGraw-Hill, New York.
7.
RossorM. N.IversenL. L.ReynoldsG. P. (1984), Neurochemical characteristics of early and late onset types of Alzheimer's disease, British Medical Journal288, 961–4.
8.
TulvingE. (1983), Elements of Episodic Memory, Oxford University Press, London.