Special Issue "Alzheimer's Disease Drugs"

Guest Editor
Prof. Dr. Pierre Vandel
Psychiatry and Medical Psychology Department, University Hospital of Besançon, France
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Dear Colleagues,

One of the main purpose of Alzheimer disease treatment is to improve cognitive abilities- such as memory and thinking and also slow progression of the disease. Despite many promising research current treatments cannot cure or halt the disease, but can offer some people modest improvement in some symptoms.

Alzheimer’s disease drugs are coming from 2 main categories: drugs to treat cognitive symptoms and drugs to treat specific behavioral disturbances that do not respond to non-pharmacological behavioral-management approaches. Prevention treatment are also of some importance.

Research into Alzheimer’s is focused on different possible treatments such as increasing the efficiency of the damaged nerve cells, preventing production and inhibiting the build-up of beta amyloid proteins, protecting nerve cells from the damaging effects of hydrogen peroxide.

If cholinestérase inhibitors are the first drugs developped, recent progress have highlited other drugs with different targets such as amyloid plaques or neurofibrillary tangles. Alzheimer’s vaccine, secretase modulators, anti-inflammatory drugs or even some antibiotics have been tested and seem to interfere with the development of amyloid plaques in the brain. Countless new treatments are in development, so more options will be available in the near future.

The purpose of this special issue is to assess the current status of AD drugs and perspective of new treatment stratégies through comprehensive reviews or original research datas.

Prof. Dr. Pierre Vandel
Guest Editor

Submission Information

All papers should be submitted to pharmaceuticals@mdpi.org. To be published continuously until the deadline and papers will be listed together at the special issue website.

Submitted papers should not have been published nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. All papers are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Pharmaceuticals is a new international, peer-reviewed, quarterly open access journal published by Molecular Diversity Preservation International.

Submission Information

All papers should be submitted to pharmaceuticals@mdpi.org. To be published continuously until the deadline and papers will be listed together at the special issue website.

Submitted papers should not have been published nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere. All papers are refereed through a peer-review process. A guide for authors is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Pharmaceuticals is a new international, peer-reviewed, quarterly open access journal published by Molecular Diversity Preservation International.

Article Processing Charges (APC) for publication in this open access journal are waived for well-prepared manuscripts submitted by 30 June 2010. English correction or formatting fees of 250 CHF (Swiss Francs) will be charged in certain cases for those paper accepted for publication, that require extensive additional formatting and/or English corrections.

• alzheimer disease
• cognitive behavior disorder
• memory
• beta amyloid
• antioxydants
• cholinesterase inhibitors
• vaccine
• prevention

Manuscript ID: Pharmaceutica-ADdrugs-20090803-Robert-fr
Title: Measurement of Neuropsychiatric Symptoms in Clinical Trials
Authors: P.H.Robert , E.Mullin, R. David, P.Malléa
Affiliation: Memory Center (CMRR) & Center for innovation in Health care (CIU-S), Nice, France; Email: phil.robert15@orange.fr
Abstract: Neuropsychiatric symptoms, also referred to as ‘BPSD’ (Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia) or ‘challenging behaviour’, are now proposed as a major component of the dementia syndrome. There is a growing interest in these symptoms as they are present since the early stage of the disease, constitute a marker of disease progression, are responsible for a large share of the suffering of patients and caregivers, and strongly determine the patient’s lifestyle and management. Behavioural changes are not only important at a symptomatic level but could be a key feature for the future disease modifying therapies. Therefore the field of geriatric psychiatry is in an urgent need of new paradigms of therapeutic development. In this context it is important to improve the quality of the available clinical instruments. The aims of the article are to summarize the available treatment for BPSD and to develop the interest of new technologies in addition to classical assessment tools. New perspectives include: a) the development of a new version of the NPI (NPI-C); b) Development of clinical ratings instrument on new support such as iPhone; c) the use of more objective assessment tools such as actigraphic measure and GPS.