Hyperbaric oxygen combined with donepezil in the treatment of vascular dementia

Objective To investigate the efficacy of hyperbaric oxygen combined with donepezil in the treat-ment of patients with vascular dementia(VD). Methods Sixty-four patients with VD were randomly divided into a control group(donepezil group,n=32)and a treatment group(hyperbaric oxygen combined with donepezil,n=32).The course of treatment was 12 weeks.All patients were tested using the Mini-Mental State Examination(MMSE)and Hasegawa's dementia scale(HDS)before and after treatment. Results After 12 weeks of treatment,the MMSE scores and HDS scores of patients increased significantly in both the control and treatment groups.There were signifi-cant differences between the control and treatment groups in terms of MMSE and HDS scores.Conclusion Hyperbar-ic oxygen combined with donepezil could significantly improve cognition in VD patients. Key words: Vascular dementia; Hyperbaric oxygen; Donepezil