Monitoring of drug treatment and psychosocial intervention with SPECT in Alzheimer patients Implications for neurologically appropriate psychosocial interventions. An observational study. The Osaki-Tajiri Project

We previously examined cerebral blood flow (CBF) with single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) in Alzheimer's disease (AD) with reference to drug treatment (donepezil) and psychosocial intervention. The aim is to provide "brain-based" evidence for psychosocial interventions using SPECT. The participants were 27 consecutive outpatients with AD who received the drug and psychosocial intervention, and SPECT three times (baseline, pre-/post-intervention) at 6 month-intervals. The significance level of changes in CBF (Z score) and the extent of significantly changed areas, calculated with the eZIS system, were used as monitoring parameters. The participants were classified into three groups: improve (post-intervention CBF increased), worsening (progressive decline), and no change. Six, 8, and 13 patients were classified as improve, worsening, and no change, respectively. All subjects in the improve group showed improvement in cognitive test scores for the MMSE and/or the CGI scores associated with the brain area with a CBF increase (right parietal lobe), suggesting appropriate psychosocial intervention (visuospatial intervention). These results suggest that monitoring of CBF with the eZIS system may be clinically applicable for monitoring of drug treatment and psychosocial intervention in AD patients.