Modern Approaches and Strategies for Prevention and Therapeutic Influence of Alzheimer's Disease

ABSTRACT

Alzheimer's disease is a chronic progressive polypathogenic neurodegenerative disease in which the combination of variousmechanisms and risk factors and the appearance of amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles cause anatomic, cellularand molecular changes, leading to a disorder of cortical functions, memory deficits, behavioral and functional disorders andtotal disintegration of intellectual and psychic activities.The up-to-date necessity of application of new effective drugs hasbeen associated with an increase of the rate of the disease, a large number of risk factors and a variety of pathogenicmechanisms of neuronal degeneration. The therapeutic trends for Alzheimer's disease have been related to the symptomaticresponse and prevention of delay in the neuronal degeneration by the use of cholinergic, antiamyloid, antineurofibrillary,antiinflammatory, antioxidant, neurotrophic, neuroprotective and vasoactive agents.The classic therapeutic approach hasbeen a compensatory therapy by the application of reversible acetylcholinesterase inhibitors. New trends have beenconnected to the elimination of amyloid plaques, formed by the action of γ-secretase enzyme. A perspective therapeutictrend is a multitarget therapy through compounds with potential properties for a simultaneous response to the pathogeneticmechanisms of the disease. In this regard, Galantamine and products with properties to inhibit acetylcholinesterase and γsecretase and to possess radical-scavenging activity have been of interest. One of the most promising approaches toalternative prevention has been the antioxidant therapy with phytocompounds with antioxidant, antiamyloidogenic,antiinflammatory and antiapoptotic properties.The more effective trend for therapy of Alzheimer's disease is the combinedtherapy, involving both pathological mechanisms. The studies to increase the pharmacological effect by using thecombination of acetylcholinesterase inhibitors with potential synergists have been ongoing.