The Promise of Cannabinoid Therapy for Agitation in Advanced Alzheimer Disease: Brent Forester, MD, MSc

WATCH TIME: 5 minutes

“We were quite pleased and maybe even a little surprised that in only 3 weeks, we saw significant improvement in agitation symptoms in patients already on substantial psychiatric medications.”

According to research, agitation is a widespread symptom that can greatly impact the quality of life for patients with Alzheimer disease (AD) as well as for their caregivers. In previous studies, traditional therapies such as antipsychotics have shown limited efficacy and heightened risk of adverse events including stroke-like events and mortality. The THC-AD trial was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study that assed dronabinol (oral delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol; THC) at 5-mg twice daily in 80 patients aged between 60 years to 95 years with severe agitation in AD.

New topline data from the trial showed that treatment with dronabinol revealed improvements in agitation symptoms among participants. These results were recently presented at the 2024 Clinical Trials on Alzheimer’s Disease (CTAD) conference, held October 29 to November 1, in Madrid, Spain, by lead author Brent Forester, MD, MSc, chair of the department of psychiatry at Tufts Medical Center and director of behavioral health for Tufts Medicine, and senior author Paul Rosenberg, MD, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Authors noted that the data paves the way for additional research into cannabinoid therapies for agitation in AD, highlighting the need for a deeper comprehension of treatment response to improve future trials.

Prior to the presentation, Forester, chair of psychiatry at Tufts University School of Medicine, sat down with NeurologyLive^® to further discuss the findings. He talked about the primary reasons for choosing dronabinol as an adjunct therapy for agitation in patients with AD. He also spoke about how the use of psychiatric medications among participants impacts the study's design and outcomes. Moreover, Forester, who also serves as the interim chair of neurology at Tufts Medical Center, shared his thoughts on the most significant findings in terms of agitation reduction and tolerability over the course of the trial.

Click here for more coverage of CTAD 2024.

REFERENCES
1. Forester B, Leoutsakos JM, Agronin M, Vandrey R, Rosenberg P. The THC-AD Study: The Efficacy and Safety of Dronabinol Treatment for Agitation in Alzheimer’s Dementia. Presented at: 2024 CTAD; October 29-November 1; Madrid, Spain. LBS4. Presentation 2.