Clinical Trial - Memory Loss WBR

Many of you who had WBR may be aware of memory problems associayed with this treatment. Christine's rad/onc told her yesterday that the radiation may affect healthy tissue for up to 5 years after treatment.

I came across the following clinical trial at Wake Forest Cancer Center. I called the trial coordinator for more information. She told me that the results so far has been remarkable.

I will be discussing this treatment with Christine and I see Dr, Hodgens on the 13th of this month.

Clinical Trial Memory Loss

Warmest Regards
Joe

Joe, it looks like the trial is closed. Do you have any info on the doses of the drugs and when they are started and for how long? Ginko is available in so many brands.

Thanks,
Rosie

Rosie,

The trials are described in the attachment. I am looking into the Alzheimers drug. It is already FDA approved and my Rad/onc would have no problem prescribing them for Christine.

Warmest Regards
Joe

Trial Details


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I clicked the link and saw that the treatment was with Ginko Biloba, which is an over the counter supplement and Donepezil, an FDA-approved (for Alzheimers and other [?] conditions) drug.

I found some information on Donepezil:

"Donepezil ...belongs to a class of drugs called cholinesterase inhibitors that also includes tacrine (Cognex). Scientists believe that Alzheimer's disease may result from a deficiency in chemicals (neurotransmitters) used by nerves in the brain to communicate with one another. Donepezil inhibits acetylcholinesterase, an enzyme responsible for the destruction of one neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. This leads to increased concentrations of acetylcholine in the brain, and the increased concentrations are believed to be responsible for the improvement seen during treatment with donepezil."

(http://www.medicinenet.com/donepezil/article.htm)

There is a lot of research available on non-pharmaceutical ways to improve memory function. I would highly recommend some good basic information on how memory operates (look at the cognitive psychology literature at Borders or Amazon, etc. for some good basic information and then go from there).

Even though the results of this study may look promising, I'd be extremely surprised if there aren't a number of treatment methodologies that would be equally effective with fewer potential side-effects. (I'm taking doctoral courses in both cognitive psych and alternative medicine so am not talking late night informercials but scientific studies.) The brain has incredible plasticity, which we don't take full enough advantage of. Other than tissue destruction, which is not the case here, there are multiple ways to skin a "neurological memory cat."