AN ALZHEIMER’S drug may help people who have had a stroke to speak again.
Donepezil boosts neurons’ ability to communicate, so Marcelo Berthier at the Médico-Sanitarias Research Centre in Malaga, Spain, and colleagues wondered whether it might benefit people with aphasia, a condition characterised by an inability to pronounce or comprehend speech. Stroke is its most common cause.
Preliminary results show that of 26 people with aphasia, those taking 10 milligrams of donepezil per day were better able to express and comprehend language after 16 weeks than those given a placebo, Berthier told a meeting of the American Academy…
