Complementary and Alternative Medicines Use Against Neurodegenerative Diseases

The incidence of neurodegenerative diseases is rising due to rapidly aging population around the world and it is estimated that by 2040 they would surpass cancer as the principal cause of death in industrialized countries. Neurodegenerative diseases are relentlessly progressive disorders of the central nervous system characterized by cognitive, motor and/or behavioral dysfunctions. These diseases include Alzheimer's (AD) and Parkinson disease (PD) as most common ones and less commonly amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, Huntington's disease and vascular dementia. Despite tremendous advances in the understanding of these diseases, pharmacological treatment by conventional medicine has not obtained satisfactory results. For instance, pharmacological therapies for AD such as acetylcholinesterase inhibitors and for PD such as Levodopa are merely symptomatic. This coupled with the fact that they exhibit various side effects have led to the use of complementary and alternative medicine for the management of AD and PD. This review attempts to explore some of the most commonly used complementary and alternative medicine against AD and PD