Efficacy of oral physostigmine in primary degenerative dementia

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Abstract
To examine the efficacy of cholinergic enhancement in senile dementia of the Alzheimer type (SDAT), oral physostigmine was given to eight patients in a cross-over trial of three dose levels and a matching placebo. A dose-related improvement in memory as measured by objective verbal memory tests was observed. Performance was significantly better on the highest dose, 2 mg every 2 h, than on the lower doses. The effect was most systematically present for very short-term memory, which raises the question of whether the improvement may involve attention rather than longer term storage and retrieval.