[Clinical rehabilitative effect of memantine on cognitive and motor disorders in patients with Parkinson's disease].

OBJECTIVE

To study the effects of memantine on cognitive and motor impairment in patients with Parkinson's disease (PD).

METHODS

A total of 55 PD patients complicated by varying degrees of cognitive impairment were randomly divided into two groups. The patients of experimental group (n = 28) received memantine (20 mg/d) while those in the control group (n = 27) conventional antiparkinsonian drug therapy alone. The cognitive and motor evaluations were assessed at pre-treatment and 12, 24 weeks post-treatment by clinical assessment, rating scales and neuropsychological tests.

RESULTS

At week 24 the patients in the memantine group had better MMSE (22.8 ± 1.8), ADAS-cog (18.6 ± 2.3), and UPDRS-III (34.6 ± 4.2) scales scores than those taking placebo MMSE (18.5 ± 1.7), ADAS-cog (21.9 ± 2.4), and UPDRS-III (41.2 ± 4.0). Patients treated with memantine had better improvement on the MMSE (P < 0.05), ADAS-cog (P < 0.05), and UPDRS-III (P < 0.05) scales compared with the control group by the end of study week 24.

CONCLUSION

Memantine may improve the cognitive and motor impairments of PD. And it is both safe and well-tolerated.