Evidence from the randomized controlled trials of Traditional Chinese Medicine compound in treating Alzheimer´s disease

Objective: Alzheimer´s disease (AD) is a severe threat to the elderly. But only a few drugs were available for AD patients. In the long history of development of traditional Chinese medicine, some herb prescriptions have been discovered to have effects in treating AD. Our study was to search the randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of Chinese medicine compound for treating AD and to summarize the rule of therapy for further studies. Methods: articles published in recent 10 years from CNKI and Pubmed databases were searched according to the inclusion and exclusion criteria. The qualities of included trials were assessed according to Jadad Scale. For the rule analysis, the relevant datas of herbs were extracted from the TCM prescription of each trial. Results: 26 RCTs were identified, of which only 4 trials were of high quality. 33 TCM prescriptions and totally 91 herbs were used in these 26 included RCTs. Tonic herbs were used more frequently than other kinds of Chinese medicinal materials. The herbs with effects of promoting blood circulation, resolving phlegm, clearing heat or tranquilization were also used frequently. Conclusions: Chinese medicinal materials with effects of tonic, promoting blood circulation, resolving phlegm, clearing heat or tranquilization might be potentially useful in treating AD for further researches. But it seems to be necessary to improve the quality of RCTs.