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Clinical Outcomes And Outcomes Of Alzheimer 's Disease With Dementia Essay

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The empirical paper, on which this critique is based on (Pagan et al., 2016), aimed to assess the safety, pharmacokinetics, clinical outcomes and biomarkers of Nilotinib (a tyrosine kinase inhibitor) in advanced Parkinson’s disease (PD), Parkinson’s disease with dementia (PDD) and dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB). PD Subject selection was based on diagnosis of PD in accordance with the UK Brain Bank Diagnostic Criteria. 12 subjects were assigned to either 150mg (n = 5) or 300mg (n = 7) groups at random and were orally administered Nilotinib daily for 24 weeks with a 12 week follow up. Measurement of exploratory biomarkers were completed at regular intervals, as were motor and non-motor symptoms using the Unified Parkinson’s Disease Rating Scale (UPDRS). The Mini Mental State Examination (MMSE) and Scales for Outcomes in Parkinson’s Disease-Cognition (SCOPA-Cog) were also administered for the measurement of dementia. The authors conclude suggesting improvements in symptoms of PD and dementia occurred. The following critique however, will focus solely on PD. Critique Although the study provides valuable information by adding to what is known about the pharmacokinetics, efficacy and safety of Nilotinib in PD, there are some flaws in this research. First, the basis for this study is the assumption that Nilotinib, being a c-ABL inhibitor (Manley et al., 2010), can prevent the build-up of neurotoxic substrates in the brains of PD patients, thus improving symptoms (Karuppagounder

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