Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive, developmental neurodegenerative disease. It cannot be cured at present, and the progression of the disease is mainly slowed down by the use of drugs to improve patients’ cognitive function and control their psychiatric symptoms.
1. Drugs to improve cognitive function: These include acetylcholinesterase inhibitors such as donepezil, carboplatin, and sarcosine, as well as glutamate receptor antagonists such as memantine. In addition, brain metabolism activators such as olaxetan are sometimes used in clinical practice.
2. Non-pharmacological treatment: many patients in the course of the disease will appear hallucinations, delusions, anxiety, depression, sleep disorders and other psychiatric symptoms, at this time, feasible interventions. Specific measures include environmental therapy, sensory stimulation therapy, music therapy, soothing therapy, etc., which can help alleviate the condition and slow down the development of the disease.
3. Drugs to control mental symptoms: For patients with severe hallucinations, depression and other mental symptoms, antidepressants and antipsychotics can be given. Antidepressants mainly include trazodone, sertraline, etc., and antipsychotics include risperidone, olanzapine, quetiapine, etc.
Patients with suspected Alzheimer’s disease should be accompanied by their family members to consult the neurology department to clarify the cause and choose reasonable treatments under the guidance of professional doctors.