effects of 6-months treatment with donepezil and rivastigmin on results of neuropsychological tests of mmse, npi, clock and bender in patients with alzheimer's disease

alzheimer's disease is the most common degenerative disease of brain. nowadays, the most common treatment being used to slow down disease progression, include donepezil , rivastigmine and galantamine, which all of them act as inhibitors of acetyl cholinesterase. general purpose of our study was to show effects of treatment with donepezil and rivastigmine, as two drugs that commonly used for treatment of ad in iran and to compare these effects between two drugs. samples selected from patients who had alzheimer` disease with dsm iv criteria and were candidate of receiving donepezil or rivastigmine, as treatment of ad, for the first time. we used four neuropsychological tests including mmse, npi, clock and bender to assess patient's cognitive and behavioral changes during treatment with two drugs. patients divided to two groups (each group 35 cases); patients with plan of taking donepezil entered into one of the groups and patients with plan of taking rivastigmine entered into another. the four tests were completed once before starting treatment and then, 1 month, 3 months and 6 months after treatment with donepezil and rivastigmine. mmse, 6 months after treatment with donepezil, improved from 20.63 before treatment to 21.83, which is statistically significant (p = 0.04). also, mmse, 6 months after treatment with rivastigmine, improved from 20.03 before treatment to 22.71, which was statistically significant (p = 0.007). about clock test, there was a significant improvement from 5.74 before treatment to 6.4 after 6 months of treatment with rivastigmine; while this significant improvement was not seen in patients receiving donepezil. in two other tests, no significant differences were seen before and after treatment. also, no significant difference was detected between two groups and so no different effects on these tests between donepezil and rivastigmine in 6 months period of treatment.