Cholinesterase inhibitors for co-morbid Alzhemer’s disease dementia and schizophrenia Systematic review and meta-analysis.docVIP

World Journal of Neuroscience, 2013, 3, 57-60 WJNS doi:10.4236/wjns.2013.32008 Published Online May 2013 (/journal/wjns/) Cholinesterase inhibitors for co-morbid Alzhemer’s disease dementia and schizophrenia: Systematic review and meta-analysis Vellingiri Raja Badrakalimuthu Parklands Hospital, Basingstoke, UK Email: raja.badrakalimuthu@yahoo.co.uk Received 17 February 2013; revised 20 March 2013; accepted 16 April 2013 Copyright ? 2013 Vellingiri Raja Badrakalimuthu. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. ABSTRACT 1. INTRODUCTION Cholinergic dysfunction is common to Alzheimer’s dementia and Schizophrenia. The objective of this study is to undertake a systematic review and meta- analysis of the literature on the cognitive and clinical effects of cholinesterase inhibitors administered to patients with schizophrenia and co-morbid Alz- heimer’s disease dementia. A literature search of the MEDLINE, CINAHL, PubMed, PsycINFO, EM- BASE, AMED, BNI, HMIC and Health Business Elite databases has been performed (up to January 2013) to investigate the use of cholinesterase inhibitors in patients with schizophrenia and dementia. The terms “schizophrenia”, “dementia”, “rivastigmine”, “done- pezil”, “galantamine” and “cognitive deficit” have been searched, with a restriction for English language. Five published studies including 1 RCT have been included for the qualitative review. Treatments in- clude Donepezil 5 mg and 10 mg as well as Rivastig- mine 9 mg. The numbers of participants vary from 2 in case report to 20 in the RCT. Only 1 study qualifies for meta-analysis. There is a very limited evidence on the efficacy and safety of using acetylcholinesterase inhibitors in the management of dementia co-morbid w