Reminyl is not claimed to be a cure for Alzheimer's disease. It treats only the symptoms and there is no evidence to show that it could halt or reverse the process of cell damage that causes Alzheimer's disease.

Who might benefit?Reminyl is intended only for people with Alzheimer's disease, and not for people with other kinds of dementia. It is licensed only for people who are in the mild to moderately severe stages of the illness.

It is important to realise that unfortunately Reminyl will not help everyone who tries it.

Effects -The effect of the drug will vary for different people. Some will not notice an effect at all. Others may find that their condition improves, or that they stay the same when they would have expected to get gradually less able because of the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

For most who take it there will not be a dramatic improvement, but the drug may help to stop symptoms getting worse. Janssen-Cilag and Shire, who manufacture the drug, did studies looking at the drug's effect on memory and understanding, behaviour and people's ability to carry out daily living activities.

The results of the studies are averages, so some people did better and some worse than the average. It is not possible to tell whether the drug will have an effect for any particular person.

On one measure of understanding and memory, people with Alzheimer's disease without treatment normally score 5-11 points worse after a year. After a year on the high dose of Reminyl, the average score of people taking Reminyl had stayed the same, and about a third had improved by 4 points. However, it must be remembered that 15% of people taking the placebo (dummy pill) also improved by the same amount. (This is a common effect in clinical trials when people take a placebo.)

For those who took Reminyl, behavioural symptoms such as anxiety, hallucinations and wandering on average did not get worse over the course of a five month study. For some people these symptoms improved, while for those not taking the drug they got significantly worse.

For activities of daily living, on average, people taking Reminyl also remained the same over a year, whereas those not taking the drug got worse at activities like bathing, managing money and preparing food.