Current and future clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease: evolving ethical concerns.
1. An increase in the cases of Alzheimer's disease, primarily consequent to the rapid growth of the elderly population necessitates the enhanced pace of anti-dementia drug development and an increase in clinical trials. Clinical trials with persons with dementia, however, present with a number of ethical concerns that need to be anticipated and analyzed. 2. The present review first discusses some of the on-going and possible future experimental approaches to anti-dementia drug development. 3. Some of the ethical concerns raised by anti-dementia drug research with human subjects are then examined. A few preliminary recommendations for future directions are proposed. It is important to anticipate issues of ethical and social concern and establish forums for appropriate bioethical analysis.
Issa
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Biomedical Ethics Unit, Faculty of Medicine, McGill University, Montreal, Québec, Canada.
Keyserlingk
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EW
D000544:Alzheimer Disease / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000235:genetics; D004995:Ethics, Professional; D005838:Genotype; D006801:Humans