Drug treatments for Alzheimer's disease. II. A review of outcome measures in clinical trials

Wolfson C, Moride Y, Perrault A, Momoli F, Demers L, Oremus M
Record ID 32000000836
English, French
Authors' objectives:

This report has three objectives:

1. To assess the evidence for the clinical efficacy of individual therapies for Alzheimer's disease. 2. To compare the clinical efficacy of individual therapies for AD as appropriate. 3. To review the reliability and validity data on many of the primary and secondary outcome measures used in the trials selected in objective 1.

The third objective listed above, that is the review of the measurement properties of the outcomes used in the trials, is the subject of this report.

Authors' recommendations: In the current report (Drug Treatments for Alzheimer's Disease. II. A Review of Outcome Measures in Clinical Trials), we review the psychometric properties of the primary and secondary outcome measures used in these trials and we remain concerned about the wide variety of scales used that do not have adequate psychometric assessment. Although a great number of the scales used have evidence of reliability and validity, responsiveness to change has generally not been adequately assessed. For this reason, the clinical significance of the treatment: placebo differences remain unclear. The ability to carry out a comparative analysis of therapies for AD depends not only on the comparability of design, duration, and outcome measures used but also on the methods of reporting the results of the trials. There was no consistent method of reporting the results of the AD trials even when emanating from the same group of investigators. Although journals do have different guidelines for authors, we recommend that reports of clinical trials of therapies for AD follow a standardized format for presenting results, which would enhance the ability to compare results across studies.
Authors' methods: Overview
Details
Project Status: Completed
URL for project: https://www.ccohta.ca/
Year Published: 2000
English language abstract: An English language summary is available
Publication Type: Not Assigned
Country: Canada
MeSH Terms
  • Alzheimer Disease
Contact
Organisation Name: Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment
Contact Address: 600-865 Carling Avenue, Ottawa, ON K1S 5S8 Canada. Tel: +1 613 226 2553, Fax: +1 613 226 5392;
Contact Name: requests@cadth.ca
Contact Email: requests@cadth.ca
Copyright: Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment
This is a bibliographic record of a published health technology assessment from a member of INAHTA or other HTA producer. No evaluation of the quality of this assessment has been made for the HTA database.