The control group had persistent symptoms or side effects. Patients had high scores in the Neuropsychiatric Inventory (NPI), even though they were considered stable. However, these patients could not be considered refractory to psychotropic drugs. Only patients or family (caregivers) who had provided voluntary informed consent in writing to participate in this study, upon receiving a full explanation of the purpose and method of the study, were enrolled. Patient confidentiality was strictly adhered to, as were ethical considerations. Donepezil treatment was discontinued as follows: patients receiving 5 Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical mg were discontinued

immediately at 0 week, whilst patients receiving 10 mg had their dosages reduced to 5 mg at 0 week, and were then withdrawn from donepezil at 2 weeks. The psychotropic equivalents calculation table of Inagaki and Inada was used as a guideline for psychotropic equivalents Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical [Inagaki and Inada, 2006, 2012] when calculating

the baseline to postdose changes in the dosages of the concomitant psychotropic drugs. The subjects’ daily dosages were calculated in terms of risperidone or diazepam equivalents. Assessment methods The following clinical assessments were performed at baseline and 16 weeks by the psychiatrist who was providing the actual therapy. The outcome measures assessed were BPSD and cognitive function. BPSD was assessed using the NPI [Cummings et al. 1994] and Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical cognitive function was assessed using the Mini Mental Examination (MMSE) [Folstein et al. 1975] because Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical our facilities did not have the Severe Impairment Battery (SIB), which is one of the best evaluation tools for cognition. Selleckchem INCB018424 Statistical analysis Comparison of baseline

demographics – Fisher’s exact tests. Changes in symptoms and dosages of concomitantly used psychotropic drugs over time (within groups): paired t-tests. If the data did Inhibitors,research,lifescience,medical not show a normal distribution, then the Wilcoxon rank-sum test was used instead. Changes in symptoms and dosages of concomitantly used psychotropic drugs over time (between groups): Mann-Whitney U test. The significance level was p < 0.05 in all analysis. Results No significant differences were observed between the donepezil treatment discontinuation group and the control group in the baseline NPI total score, baseline MMSE score, mean daily dose of the previous Non-specific serine/threonine protein kinase treatment drug, mean duration of illness or the mean age of the patients (Table 1). The mean duration of donepezil treatment before the trial started was 64.9 ± 31.0 months. Table 1. Subject characteristics. Because all patients had a baseline score of ≤5 on the MMSE, they were all inpatients or in 24-hour care, with advanced or severe AD. Therefore, they also had difficulty communicating with the staff. Significant decreases were found in the donepezil treatment discontinuation group in the NPI total score and two NPI subscales, agitation and irritability.