Novel therapies for treatment of Alzheimers Disease

Abstract

Alzheimers disease (AD) is the most common cause of progressive dementia in the elderly population. It is a chronic neurodegenerative disease associated with the loss of nerve cells in areas of the brain that are vital to memory and other mental abilities. Currently available treatments for AD: such as reversible anticholinesterases namely tacrine, donepezil, rivastigmine, galantamine and NMDA receptor antagonists like memantine provide largely symptomatic relief with only minor effects on the course of the disease. There are a number of newer drugs to effectively modify the progression of AD. All of these newer agents are directing towards the biochemical mechanism of AD development, including targeting tau protein (e.g. Inhibition of tau kinase), targeting A? (e.g. ?-Secretase Inhibitors), and therapies involving gene as well as stem cell strategies. Hence in this review, we summarized the pathogenesis of AD along with the future targets of therapy.