Question: “In adults with a behavioural variant (particularly Progressive non fluent aphasia (PNFA), semantic dementia (SD), logopenic dementia) or frontotemporal dementia (FTDbv) how effective are cholinesterase inhibitors or memantine in achieving improved patient outcomes?”

Answer:

Plain language summary

Evidence suggests that more substantial high quality research is needed into the effectiveness of cholinesterase inhibitors or memantine, in improving symptoms of behavioural variant and frontotemporal dementia.

Clinical and research implications

No definite clinical implications may be made based on the evidence presented in this BEST summary. The authors of one well-conducted paper included in this summary suggested that memantine is not an effective treatment for frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTD). There was general consensus among all study authors that there is a need to develop more effective therapeutics for FTD.

To view the full summary, click the Download Document link to the right.