The Efficacy Of Levodopa-benserazide And Troxerutin In Treatment Of Extrapyramidal Symptoms Of Advanced Alzheimer's Disease

Alzheimer's disease is a primary degenerative cerebral disease of unknown etiology.The disease takes an insidious,progressive and irreversible course,with a predominant clinical picture of cognitive impairment.It has prominent features of other cortical impairment,including aphasia,agraphia,alexia,dysphasia or dyspraxia.The condition has resulted in impairment in activities of daily living and social functioning. Presence of Parkinsonian features or epilepsy occur in the late stage of the disease.Many studies suggest that the decline of synthesizing catecholamines transmitter in putamen is concomitant with human brain aging,while the decomposition was found to enhance with age.It sounds that we were talking about Parkinson's Disease(PD),so it's not strange that extrapyramidal symptoms occured in advanced Alzheimer's disease.Some researches showed that vascular risk factors might be related to Alzheimer' s disease,and AD might be a microvascular disorder.β-amyloid peptides enhance the vasoconstriction by endothelin-1.Pathological alterations of the cerebral microvasculature in AD,chronic cerebrovascular insufficiency induces dementia-like deficits.The prevetion and treatment of vascular diseases may improve the cognitive status of elder people.To evaluate the efficacy of levodopa-benserazide and troxerutin in the treatment of extrapyramidal symptoms in advanced Alzheimer's disease.A total of 60 patients suffering from Advanced Alzheimer's disease with extrapyramidal symptoms(CDR socre≥3) were randomized to either the levodopa-benserazide(500mg daily)group or troxerutin(600mg iv once daily)group.The clinical efficacy and side effects were evaluated by MMSE,UPDRS and TESS during the 4-week treatment.The significant changes in the MMSE were not observed between before and after treatment.Significant reduction in UPDRS was seen in both groups,the difference of the decline in the UPDRS scores between the two groups was significant in end of 4^th week.The research showes that both levodopa-benserazide and troxerutin are effective in the treatment of extrapyramidal symptoms of advanced Alzheimer's Ddisease with rapid clinical response,levodopa -benserazide treatment show more clinical efficacy than troxerutin.