Chronic transdermal nicotine patch treatment effects on cognitive performance in age-associated memory impairment

What Was Tested

Researchers studied Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) in this randomized controlled trial publication.

Who Took Part

The age groups tagged for this paper are middle-aged adults, older adults and people over 80, both men and women.

An outpatient setting was used.

The subjects ( n=11) met criteria for AAMI.

How the Study Was Run

The design is described as randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled and crossover.

Random assignment meant chance, not the researchers, decided who got Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) and who got the comparison, which limits bias.

Neither the participants nor the staff measuring them knew who was on Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide), so expectations could not easily colour the readings.

The comparison arm used a placebo, so changes seen with Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) could be set against what happens without it.

In the crossover set-up each of the participants took both Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) and the comparison in turn, acting as their own control.

The double-blind, placebo-controlled, cross-over study consisted of two 4-week periods separated by a 2-week washout period.

The effects of nicotine treatment were determined with the clinical global impressions questionnaire, Conners' Continuous Performance test, and the automated neuropsychologic assessment metrics (ANAM) computerized neuropsychology battery.

What Was Measured

Topics PubMed links to this paper include Administration, Cutaneous, Aging, Cognition, Memory Disorders, Nicotine, Psychomotor Performance and Reaction Time.

What This Means in Plain Language

The paper is a randomized, double-blind and placebo-controlled study of Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide).

Its findings take up roughly 4 sentences of the abstract and are left out here on purpose; the source paper is the place to read them.

The publication is from 2004 (Psychopharmacology), a journal based in Germany.

More context: the Therapeutic nicotine (patch, non-peptide) compound page, all human trials.