The effect of nonpharmacologic therapy on global cognitive functions in patients with Alzheimer’s disease: an updated meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Abstract

Background: The effectiveness of non-pharmacologic therapy (NPT) in treating the global cognition dysfunction associated with Alzheimer’s disease (AD) has not been clearly demonstrated. Therefore, we performed a meta-analysis to address this issue.

Methods: The Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, PUBMED, EMBASE and other databases were searched, and outcomes measured by the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE) or the Alzheimer’s Disease Assessment Scale-cognitive subscale (ADAS-cog) were analysed.

Results: Seven types of NPT were included, 25 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were selected and 3238 participants were included in the meta-analysis. There were significant differences between the NPT and control groups in the MMSE and ADAS-cog scores.

Conclusions: Although more extensive trials need to be performed, NPT has been observed to be beneficial in AD patients.

Keywords:

• Nonpharmacologic therapy
• global cognition functions
• Alzheimer’s disease
• systematic review
• meta-analysis

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Zhou Liu for the excellent technical support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by funding from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81400986), the Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. (No. 2014A030313541), the Science and Technology Planning Project of Zhanjiang (No. 2014A01031). The funding agencies had no role in the design of the study and collection, analysis, and interpretation of data and in writing the article.

Notes on contributors

Chaowen Sun

SCW conceived and designed the study. WJP and YRM performed the selection of data extraction. JM, GNL and CWS drafted the review. SCW and GNL carried out the statistical analysis and interpretation of data. All authors participated in revision of the manuscript and the final approval of the manuscript.