[Anti-Dementia Drugs (Anti-Alzheimer's Disease Drugs)].

Alzheimer's disease (AD) treatment includes both non-pharmacological and pharmacological approaches. Current pharmacological approaches include symptomatic and disease-modifying therapies (DMTs). In Japan, DMTs have not yet been approved for treating AD; however, four drugs are currently available for symptomatic therapies, including cholinesterase inhibitors (ChEIs) such as donepezil for mild-to-severe dementia, galantamine and rivastigmine for mild-to-moderate dementia, and memantine, an N-methyl-D-aspartate (NMDA) receptor antagonist, for moderate-to-severe dementia. In this review, we describe the use of four symptomatic anti-AD drugs in clinical practice for AD.