Alzheimer's treatment in nursing homes: room for improvement.

Managing Alzheimer's disease (AD) continues to challenge long-term care physicians and administrators. Although pharmacologic treatment can substantially benefit AD patients in the nursing home setting, common misconceptions and skepticism about its value are barriers to treatment use. Aggressive treatment for AD maximizes patient function and independence and is cost-effective. Herein we discuss state-of-the-art treatment of AD with a view to providing nursing home physicians a framework from which to make treatment decisions.