1996]. BPSD are often a caregiving burden in patients with dementia; however, as opposed to cognitive dysfunction, which progresses irreversibly and from which there is little chance of recovery, BPSD can be prevented or alleviated with appropriate interventions such as changes in the environment or drug therapy. Patients being treated with donepezil, one of the cholinesterase inhibitors used to treat AD, sometimes experience psychiatric symptoms such as irritability and agitation. Furthermore, donepezil cannot be expected to be particularly efficacious in severe AD and this increases the cost of therapy. However,

in Japan, there have been almost no Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical reports about donepezil’s influence on BPSD, or the changes in the dosages of concomitantly administered psychotropic drugs associated with the discontinuation of donepezil in patients with severe AD (who Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical developed BPSD) during donepezil therapy. In this study, therefore, patients with severe AD who developed BPSD during donepezil therapy were withdrawn from donepezil, and the influence on BPSD and the changes Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical in the dosages of concomitant psychotropic drugs, both before discontinuation and 16 weeks after discontinuation, were confirmed. Methods Subjects

The subjects were 44 patients who were being treated on an inpatient basis at the psychiatry departments of Tanzawa Hospital, or

the Adachi Shinseien or Hadano Shojuen homes for the elderly, and had been diagnosed with AD according to the Diagnostic Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) criteria. Patients were also diagnosed with probable AD according to the diagnostic selleckchem criteria of Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical the National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Disorders and Stroke and (NINCDS) and the Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Disorders Association (ADRDA) [McKhann et al. 1984]. Only patients with AD with BPSD who had been using a stable dose of donepezil, a cholinesterase inhibitor, for at least 3 years were included. In addition, a group of patients with AD (22 subjects) was established as a control group who were not concomitantly receiving cholinesterase inhibitors and whose background characteristics were consistent with those of the patients in the group that discontinued their donepezil treatment (22 unless subjects). The donepezil treatment discontinuation group and the control group were recruited separately. Furthermore, all the subjects who participated in this study were inpatients whose treatment compliance had been confirmed each time by a nurse or caregiver, and whose treatment compliance was thus assured. They were required to be symptomatically stable, as judged by the treating psychiatrist, and to be able to complete all the clinical measures.