Effectiveness of the combination of memantine plus vitamin D on cognition in patients with Alzheimer disease: a pre-post pilot study.

OBJECTIVE To determine whether treatment with memantine plus vitamin D is more effective than memantine or vitamin D alone in improving cognition among patients with Alzheimer disease (AD). METHODS We studied 43 white outpatients (mean 84.7 ± 6.3 years; 65.1% women) with a new diagnosis of AD, who had not taken anti-dementia drugs or vitamin D supplements. We prescribed memantine alone (n = 18), vitamin D alone (n = 17), or memantine plus vitamin D (n = 8) for an average of 6 months. We assessed cognitive change with the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE). We used age, sex, pre-treatment MMSE score, and duration of treatment as covariables. RESULTS Before treatment, the 3 groups had comparable MMSE scores. At 6 months, participants taking memantine plus vitamin D increased their MMSE score by 4.0 ± 3.7 points (P = 0.034), while participants taking memantine alone remained stable (change of 0.0 ± 1.8 points; P = 0.891), as did those taking vitamin D alone (-0.6 ± 3.1 points; P = 0.504). Treatment with memantine plus vitamin D was associated with improvement in the MMSE score compared to memantine or vitamin D alone after adjustment for covariables (P < 0.01). Mixed regression analysis showed that the visit by combined treatments (memantine plus vitamin D) interaction was significant (P = 0.001), while memantine or vitamin D alone showed no effect. CONCLUSIONS Patients with AD who took memantine plus vitamin D for 6 months had a statistically and clinically relevant gain in cognition, underlining possible synergistic and potentiating benefits of the combination.