Conditions: Parkinson's Disease
Keywords: Parkinson's disease non-motor symptoms
Allocation: RANDOMIZED | Intervention model: PARALLEL
Enrollment: 40
Healthy volunteers: no

Brief summary:
To evaluate the effects of Memantine on non-motor symptoms in patients with Parkinson's disease.

Parkinson's disease (PD) affects about one million people in the United States. It is a common neurological condition that is clinically defined by rigidity (muscle stiffness), bradykinesia (slowness of movement) and tremor. Parkinson's Disease , however, reveals numerous non-motor symptoms that have been underemphasized. Problematic symptoms include varying degrees of dementia, psychosis, diminished assertiveness and confidence, general fatigue, excessive daytime sleepiness, problems with blood pressure, sweating, and bladder, and a common yet difficult to define sense of "not feeling well".

Detailed description:
Patients were enrolled over 11 months from the Parkinson Disease Center and Movement Disorder Clinic at Baylor College of Medicine. PD was diagnosed using standard criteria. Specific inclusion criteria were intentionally broad and included both fluctuating and non-fluctuating patients with a UPDRS "motivation" (#4) score of greater or equal to 2. Patients with dementia (MMSE\<24) or taking amantadine were excluded.

The patients signed an informed consent approved by the Baylor College of Medicine Institutional Review Board and the study was registered on Clinical Trials.gov #NCT00646204. The study was funded by a grant from the Forest Research Institute.

After baseline assessments, patients (N=40) were randomized equally to drug (N=20) and placebo (N=20) groups. This was done by a computerized random number generator by a coordinator not otherwise involved in the study.

Patients completed medical and medication histories, a Unified Parkinson's Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS), a battery of neuropsychiatric assessments (see Table 2), global impressions, and adverse events. Patients were not allowed to change other PD medications. The drug/placebo dosing began at 5 mg/day and increased to 5 mg 2x/day, 10 mg / 5 mg, and finally 10 mg 2x/day, in weekly increments. After a safety call (2 weeks after initiation) they returned for identical assessments at week 8. Drug accountability was documented at each visit. An 8-week open label extension was started if desired using the same protocol and assessments.

Tabulations and univariate statistics on difference scores between visits were run using Intercooled Stata V8.0 for windows (Stata Corporation, College Station, Texas 77845), and included Student's t-test with equal variances and contingency table analysis using Pearson's Chi-square test. Statistics were done using LOCF. Corrections for multiple comparisons were not done.

Arms:
arm 1: memantine 10 mg bid arm 2: 2 tabs bid

Interventions: intervention 1: Memantine intervention 2: placebo
Intervention descriptions: intervention 1: 10 mg bid intervention 2: 2 tabs bid

Protocol document: