Treating dementia before any symptoms

TReATMenT for patients with Alzheimer’s may be more effective if it is started much earlier, suggests a new study.

Scientists at the University of Virginia in the U.S. found that the plaques in the brain, a hallmark of the disease, often occur after a rise in the amount of calcium entering the nerve cells.

They found that if given to patients identified as at risk

before symptoms occur, drugs such as memantine, prescribed for Alzheimer’s, could stop the calcium getting into the cells and may ‘have potent disease modifying properties’.

‘ Perhaps this could prevent the disease or slow its progression,’ they wrote in the journal Alzheimer’s & Dementia.