Tolerability of Rivastigmine Before and After Switching From Oral Formulation to Transdermal Patch in Alzheimer's Dementia

Alzheimer's Dementia Clinical Trial

Official title: A 52-week, Prospective, Multi-center, Open-label Study to Assess the Tolerability of Rivastigmine Before and After Switching From Oral Formulation to Transdermal Patch in Patients With Alzheimer's Dementia in a Controlled Titration Schedule

Status Completed

Clinical Trial Summary

This phase IIIb study is intended to implement a consistent treatment way for switching to Exelon transdermal patch from oral formulation of rivastigmine to stress the importance of (1) advantages of transdermal patch over conventional oral therapies: smooth drug delivery with reduced side effects;(2) encourage treatment compliance in the Alzheimer's dementia setting.

This study is a single-arm, treatment-switched design. Eligible patients, who are under Exelon capsule 3 mg b.i.d. treatment for 4 weeks before Visit 2, will be recruited, followed by treatment switch from oral capsule to patch for 48 weeks maintenance treatment. During the maintenance period, the treatment will be initiated with Exelon Patch 4.6 mg/24 hours (Exelon Patch 5 cm^2) for the first 24 weeks and the dose will be escalated to Exelon Patch 9.5 mg/24 hours (Exelon Patch 10 cm^2) for another 24 weeks if well tolerated. Visits to assess safety are scheduled at baseline, 3 days, 1 week and 2 weeks after the first treatment switch, every 4 weeks until Week 40, and at the end of study (Week 52). The assessment to address the primary objective will focus on the safety of treatment switching (Week 0~28); however the safety assessment will be performed during the whole study period.

Clinical Trial Description

n/a

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Alzheimer Disease
• Alzheimer's Dementia
• Dementia

• NCT number: NCT01585272
• Study type: Interventional
• Source: Novartis
• Status: Completed
• Phase: Phase 4
• Start date: August 2012
• Completion date: June 2015