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This relatively small study showed that the commonly used Alzheimer's therapy Aricept markedly improved memory performance in MS patients. Interestingly enough, while the difference between placebo and Aricept during the formal lab memory tests was significant but small (~10%), double the number of patients on Aricept felt that their memory was better than those on placebo-- indicating that the small difference in test performance makes a big impact on quality of life. As this was a small study, more trials will of course be necessary before Aricept could be considered an accepted treatment option (sigh...).

"Aricept, a drug used in treating Alzheimer's disease, might improve memory and mental function in some people with multiple sclerosis (MS), according to a new study...

Aricept patients had greater improvements in memory testing than the placebo group. Memory test scores for the Aricept group improved almost 14% from their initial scores. The placebo group improved less than 3% on their memory test scores.

In addition, 66% of the Aricept group reportedly said their memory had gotten better, compared with only 32% of the placebo group.

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This study examines the cognitive performance of various subtypes of MS relative to each other and to controls. This is obviously not the most uplifting study, but it is important to understand the differences between the RR vs. PP vs. SP if we are going to get to the root cause(s) of MS.

"OBJECTIVE: To investigate the cognitive skills of patients with relapsing remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), secondary progressive MS (SPMS), and primary progressive MS (PPMS) relative to healthy control subjects and to assess whether there is heterogeneity in the type of cognitive disabilities demonstrated by patients with different MS phenotypes...

RESULTS: Relative to controls, cognitive performance of RRMS patients was deficient when tasks required higher-order working memory (WM) processes ... PPMS and SPMS patients performed poorer than control subjects on all tasks. SPMS patients performed more poorly than PPMS patients when tasks required higher-order WM processes, except when speed of information processing played a relatively important role ... Whereas RRMS patients generally performed better than the progressive subtypes, they showed relatively poor verbal fluency.

Click "read more" to see the full abstract...