It is not a secret that treating Alzheimer’s disease (AD) can be compared to an uphill battle. When patients suffer from progressive dementia, even simple daily activities could become a real challenge for the patients themselves. Besides, people with AD often have troubles with memory, which makes it next to impossible for them to take medicines regularly without a help of a caregiver. Under such circumstances, Exelon Patch, which is the first AD treatment with transdermal way of administration, features not only all the benefits of cholinesterase inhibitors, but also helps patients and their caregivers make the treatment more comfortable, easy and even friendly.
Unlike common pills, which should be taken by mouth on a scheduled basis, Exelon comes in the form of patch, applied to the skin of a patient only once a day. In fact, skin patch is nothing but a delivery system, the main task of which is to slowly and gradually release a particular amount of the active ingredient into patient’s body throughout the day.
The main working ingredient of Exelon Patch is called rivastigmine – the medication, introduced on the market of AD treatments in 2000 in the form of oral tablets. Later scientists from Novartis developed Exelon Patch with a new system of medication delivery, specifically improved to meet the needs of AD patients. The product was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2007.
Featuring rivastigmine as the key ingredient, Excelon Patch works in the same way as other anti AD medicines from the group of cholinesterase inhibitors, such as Aricept or Razadyne. The main goal of the medication is to stop the destruction of acetylcholine messenger in the brains, which is believed to be important for supporting many cognitive functions, including, thinking, reasoning and memory. The medication is usually prescribed for mild to moderate cases of Alzheimer’s disease. By the way, the medication is also helpful for people, suffering from mild to moderate dementia, associated with Parkinson’s disease.
Please note that Exelon Patch is produced in two dosages: 4.6mg is used for the initial treatment, and only after at least 4 weeks of treatment and good tolerability one can be switched to a stronger patch, which contains 9.5 mg of active ingredient.
Using Excelon Patch is pretty simple – one should remove the patch from pouch, peel off the protective liner, and apply patch to the skin on the back, upper arm, or chest. After 24 hours the old patch should be replaced with the new one. However, it is recommended to change the place of patch application, so that the same spot on the skin was not used for at least 2 weeks. By the way, with Exelon Patch one can bath, take shower or swim without the risk of loosing its effectiveness, of course, provided that the patch is not lost during the activities. One more precaution says that one should not apply Exelon Patch to the damaged or sunburned skin.
After starting the use of Exelon Patch it may take up to 4 week for the improvements to appear. In general, scientists are not very optimistic about the effectiveness of cholinesterase drugs – they say that only half of patients may get the delay in worsening of the AD symptoms for about 6-12 months. However, in view of the fact that no cure for AD is currently available, even a small improvement should be treated as the achievement. Besides, to enjoy improvements one should stay on the medication forever, because stopping the therapy results in the disappearance of all the improvements achieved during the treatment course.
As for the side effects, associated with the use of Exelon Patch, the official prescribing information reports nausea, vomiting and diarrhea as the most common ones. By the way, there is an important difference between Exelon Patch and Exelon oral tablets. Clinical studies proved that the rates of side effects are significantly lower in people on Exelon Patch in comparison to those, who take oral pills. For example, only 7% of the patients, treated with the maximum dose of Exelon Patch developed nausea, compared to 23% of patients on oral pills. The significant reduction of vomiting occurrence (from 17% to 6%) was also achieved by the use of Exelon Patch. Scientists explain lowering of side effects by the specific way of Exelon Patch deliver, namely its transdermal delivery system.
With less frequency, other side effects may also occur while using Exelon Patch. They are depression, headache, anxiety, anorexia and decreased appetite, weight loss, abdominal pain, dizziness, urinary tract infections, insomnia.
While Exelon is still considered to be comparatively well-tolerated medication, people with sick sinus syndrome, conduction defects, ulcers, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, urinary obstruction or seizures are considered to be poor candidates for the treatment with Exelon, since those conditions may be worsened by the medication.
Summing up the description of Exelon Patch, it is worthy to mention that while it is not a panacea against dementia, its improved safety profile due to the unique delivery system definitely emphasizes Exelon Patch among other orally administered cholinesterase inhibitors.
| Tip for you : Sign-in with Your OpenID and post faster, easier and with easy access to all your past posts. | |
|
Your Nick: |
