Daily Drugs May Help Deal With Dementia

According to a new study, daily medicines that may be present in your bathroom cabinet can help counter dementia.

Experts have recommended the use of daily medicines such as acne pills, antibiotics and other medications that are routinely taken for common problems to counter dementia, as developing new drugs for the condition is turning out to be a slow and costly venture.

Diseases Related to Old Age
Ageing is referred to the accumulation of changes that brings a person closer to death.

Researchers suggest that these drugs already in circulation must be re-examined and be considered as a quicker and cheaper alternative. Most of these drugs have multiple effects on our bodies and can also alleviate dementia–related problems.

Dealing with dementia is a big challenge to the society and to the medical world. Developing new drugs is a slow venture. A new drug takes about twenty years and 600 million pounds to be developed from scratch. Besides several drugs that were developed have failed the final test. For patients, the wait for a cure has been a painfully long one. All these factors prompted Dr. Ballard of the King’s college, London, and other experts to turn to daily drugs.

Out of the several that they re-examined some have been recommended for usage against dementia and they include liraglutide – a diabetes drug that also acts on the brain, minocycline – an antibiotic for acne, acitretin – that treats psoriasis and, calcium channel blockers - a family of blood pressure drugs. Some of these medicines are less expensive.

Britain to Train One Million Dementia Friends
As a part of new plans to tackle dementia, UK hopes to train a million people to become dementia friends, report sources. Dementia afflicts around 700,000 in England.

It is indeed very encouraging to be told that daily medicines can be used for dementia but it is still not clear if these medicines have the desired effect on this very complex disease.

Dementia is a decline in cognitive function that usually accompanies old age in 5% of the world’s elderly population. It is a progressive condition caused by neurodegenaration of the brain, causing the personality of the affected individual to undergo a massive change. Memory loss is the most prominent symptom. Some conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease and stroke can also cause dementia.

Risk of Dementia can be Reduced in Elderly by Moderate Exercise
Moderate exercise for just half an hour three times a week could reduce the risk of dementia in the elderly, a new study published in the journal Stroke reveals.

The recent study has been published in the journal Nature reviews Drug Discovery.

Source-Medindia

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