Scuteri Damiana, Morrone Luigi Antonio, Rombolà Laura, Avato Pina Rosa, Bilia Anna Rita, Corasaniti Maria Tiziana, Sakurada Shinobu, Sakurada Tsukasa, Bagetta Giacinto
Department of Pharmacy, Health Science and Nutrition, University of Calabria, 87036 Rende, Italy.
Department of Pharmacy and Drug Science, University of Bari "Aldo Moro", 70125 Bari, Italy.
Evid Based Complement Alternat Med. 2017;2017:9416305. doi: 10.1155/2017/9416305. Epub 2017 Mar 30.
The treatment of agitation and aggression, typical Behavioural and Psychological Symptoms of Dementia (BPSDs) of Alzheimer's Disease (AD), is one of the most complicated aspects of handling patients suffering from dementia. Currently, the management of these symptoms often associated with an increased pain perception, which notably reduces the patients' quality of life (QoL), relies on the employment of antipsychotic drugs. Unfortunately, the use of these pharmacological agents has some limits: in the long term, they do not result in being equally effective as in the first weeks of treatment and they present important side effects. Therefore, there is growing interest, supported by clinical evidence, in aromatherapy for the control of agitation, aggression, and psychotic symptoms. Some molecular mechanisms have been proposed to explain the behavioural effects of essential oils, as the whole phytocomplex or the single components, but important basic research effort is still needed. For this reason, rigorous preclinical studies are necessary in order to understand the pharmacological basis of aromatherapy in the treatment of BPSDs and to widen the cluster of effective essential oils in pharmacotherapeutic practice.
阿尔茨海默病（AD）所致痴呆的典型行为和心理症状（BPSDs）即激越和攻击行为的治疗，是痴呆患者护理中最复杂的方面之一。目前，这些常伴有疼痛感知增加且显著降低患者生活质量（QoL）的症状的管理，依赖于使用抗精神病药物。不幸的是，这些药物的使用存在一些局限性：从长期来看，它们的效果并不如治疗最初几周那样显著，而且还存在重要的副作用。因此，在临床证据的支持下，芳香疗法在控制激越、攻击行为和精神病性症状方面的应用越来越受到关注。已经提出了一些分子机制来解释精油作为完整植物复合物或单一成分所产生的行为效应，但仍需要重要的基础研究工作。出于这个原因，进行严格的临床前研究是必要的，以便了解芳香疗法治疗BPSDs的药理学基础，并在药物治疗实践中扩大有效精油的范围。
