The drug rivastigmine can improve moderate to severe memory loss among patients with traumatic brain injury.

Traumatic brain injury (TBI), which affects 1.5 million people a year in the US, can lead to problems with memory. Over five million Americans live with a disability linked to TBI. Now researchers at the New York School have found a drug treatment that seems to help. They gave 134 patients with TBI either rivastigmine or placebo for 12 weeks. Tests of attention and verbal memory were much improved in the rivastigmine group. Rivastigmine, which is used to treat the symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, works by boosting acetylcholine, a brain chemical involved in memory and learning.

In this trial, rivastigmine worked best for those patients with severe to moderate memory loss; it was less useful for those with only mild memory loss. It may be that significant acetylcholine loss is needed before rivastigmine actually has a measurable effect. More investigation is needed to establish which TBI patients have most to gain from rivastigmine treatment.

Source
Neurology 12th September 2006