Study of the effect of Memantine therapy on the treatment of dyslexia in children

Abstract

Background: Reading disorder (RD) is one of the important complaints in children with learning disorders (LD) that is prevalent in 4% of children in the United States. Treating this disorder includes education of reading practices and treating psychological disorders, and there are no exact  medications prescribed in these children. Memantine has been e?ective in treating memory problems in Alzheimer Dementia, obsessive–compulsive disorder, autism disorder, and other psychological diseases. Te aim of this study is to evaluate the e?ect of memantine in improving RD in children. Materials and Methods: In this randomized clinical trial, 62 children, with RD in Pediatric Psychiatry Clinics of Noor and Ali-Asghar Hospital in Isfahan from 2015 to 2016, were participated. Tey were randomly assigned to two groups of equal number, one receiving education plus memantine and the other education plus placebo. RD was evaluated at the beginning, 1 and 3 months after intervention by Iranian standard reading and dyslexia test
(Nama). Results: Mean (standard deviation) age of participants was 7.55 (0.60) years. Most of the participants were boy (55%), most having  parents in 36–45-year-old age group (52% and 48% for fathers and mothers, respectively), and also most parents in diploma and bachelor educational group (61% and 60% for fathers and mothers, respectively). Tere were statistical signifcant di?erence in trend of total score (P = 0.034), word chain (P < 0.001), rhyming (P < 0.001), text comprehension (P < 0.001), and letter ?uency (P = 0.002), subscale between two groups. However, the di?erence of time trend between two groups was not signifcant in word reading (P = 0.14), word comprehension (P = 0.06), phoneme  deletion (P = 0.12), reading nonwords (P = 0.32), and category ?uency (P = 0.06). Conclusion: Adding memantine to educational practices is e?ective in improving RD in school-age children with LD.