Doc brief

MODEL DISCLOSURE
As everyone by now is aware, dementias due to Alzheimer’s disease have now become a major public health problem. Some 750,000 patients with these conditions are believed to exist in the country and, as it is an age-related condition, numbers are bound to grow given an ageing population that is also projected. There is no specific treatment available for general use at present.

Some years ago excitement was generated by the news that a group of drugs could help control the progress of the condition by acting on one of the chemicals whose regulation in the brain appears to be associated with the disease process. Even on theoretical neuroscientific grounds the effects of these drugs could have been predicted to be modest but there was much interest—a case of clutching at straws—for otherwise the prognosis would be hopeless. In time, and as expected, only a small group of patients appeared to be benefiting from the use of the drug but there is controversy as to which