Memantine for Agitation in Dementia

We plan to evaluate the use of memantine in Alzheimer's disease to control agitation in the acute situation i.e under 12 weeks

Agitation is a cause of morbidity and mortality in Alzheimer's due to distress and use of medication with side effects. Memantine has beed shown to be associated with less agitation and a recent study by forrest pharmaceuticals failed to recruit. We will perform a 12 week rct in 164 patients to test this hypothesis in a locality with no competing studies and in a clinical setting where the drug is not often used. We will compare with placebo and also use a rescue protocol derived from international best practice.