Reviews Effects of Transdermal Rivastigmine on ADAS-Cog Items in Mild-to-Moderate Alzheimer’s Disease

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients treated with rivastigmine transdermal patch have shown statistically significant differences versus placebo on the AD Assessment scalecognitive subscale (ADAS-cog). In this retrospective analysis of a double-blind, placebo- and active-controlled, 24-week clinical trial, the specific effects of rivastigmine patch on individual ADAS-cog items and cognitive domains (memory, language, and praxis) were explored. The mean baseline to week 24 changes were calculated for each ADAS-cog item and domain in this exploratory, hypothesis-generating analysis. Patients on 9.5 mg/24 h rivastigmine patch, 17.4 mg/24 h rivastigmine patch, and 3 to 12 mg/d rivastigmine capsules showed improvements over placebo on the memory and praxis ADAS-cog subscales. The rivastigmine patch groups also showed improvements on the language subscale. Significant dif-ferences versus placebo were seen on several individual item scores in the rivastigmine-treated groups. Rivastigmine patch was associated with improvements on the memory, praxis, and language domains of cognition in patients with mild-to-moderate AD