Mayo Acute Stroke Trial for Enhancing Recovery - Full Text View - ClinicalTrials.gov Home Search Study Topics Glossary This study involves treating patients that have suffered an acute ischemic stroke with the medication donepezil (Aricept ). The intention is to see if taking donepezil (FDA-approved for the treatment of Alzheimer's Disease) for the first 90 days following a stroke enhances recovery.We hypothesize that donepezil (5 mg per day, titrated up to 10 mg per day as tolerated) will enhance recovery following stroke by improving attention, learning and memory thereby enhancing rehabilitation. Patients will be men and women with acute ( 24 hours of onset of symptoms) ischemic stroke. We will test this hypothesis in a Phase II trial that takes advantage of an existing National Institutes of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) resource, the Phase III clinical trial of tPA for acute ischemic stroke, to establish whether a large efficacy study using donepezil is justified. The NINDS tPA stroke trial has been used as historical control data in pilot trials of reperfusion and neuroprotection. Our proposed trial has significance beyond the specific case of testing donepezil. It will create a novel scientific resource for testing other recovery-enhancing strategies by providing information on acute-to-chronic trajectories of cognition and instrumental activities of daily living (IADL) function following ischemic stroke.
