Pharmacological treatment for Alzheimer's disease: Current approaches and future strategies

Abstract

More than a decade after the first approval of the use of acetylcholine esterase inhibitor on patients with Alzheimer's disease, we still not have a single treatment or combination therapy that can effectively stop or reverse the relentless progression of such neurodegenerative disease. Recently therapeutics targeting amyloid hypothesis have undergone scrutiny by many clinical trials. These include gamma secretase inhibitor for reducing beta amyloid formation, agents for preventing aggregation of amyloid oligomers, and immunotherapy for enhancing clearance of amyloid and plaque. Therapies targeting hyperphosphorylated tau is another promising mechanism to be tackled with. Other agents enforcing mitochondria functions, enhancing serotonin receptors, modulating advanced glycation end products, and neurotrophic factors, as well as other therapies are also emerging. We review current treatments and therapeutic strategies already undergone different stage of clinical trails in this report. We propose that therapeutics of various combination composed of symptomatic treatments and disease modifying therapies will become standard regimens of AD treatment with much better efficacy than current approaches.