A twice-daily oral formulation combining 2 mg of THC with 100 mg of CBD, dissolved in digestible oil, significantly reduced agitation in people with advanced dementia who were eligible for or already receiving hospice care. The topline result comes from the Phase 2 LiBBY trial (Life's End Benefits of cannaBidiol and tetrahYdrocannabinol), a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study of 120 participants with clinically significant agitation. The findings were presented for the first time at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference 2026 in London and online. The trial hit both its primary endpoint and its key secondary endpoint.
Agitation at the end of life is one of the hardest problems families and hospice teams face, and it is also one of the least studied. Lead investigator Dr. Jacobo Mintzer, a psychiatrist at the Ralph H. Johnson VA Healthcare System and professor in the College of Health Professions at the Medical University of South Carolina, called the study a robustly positive randomized controlled trial and a major step forward for a population historically left out of clinical research. His framing was blunt about what the goal is here: offering grace and peace to patients and families during an extremely difficult stretch.
On safety, overall adverse event rates were close between the two arms, 46.7 percent with the active formulation versus 42.4 percent with placebo. Serious adverse events over the 12 weeks were more common in the treatment group, 23.3 percent compared with 11.9 percent on placebo, though investigators concluded that none of those serious events were related to the study medication. That distinction matters in a hospice-eligible group, where serious medical events are expected regardless of what a patient is taking.
These are topline results, meaning the full data set and peer-reviewed publication are still to come, and the trial was a Phase 2 study rather than the larger confirmatory testing that typically precedes regulatory approval. Still, the fact that a controlled trial in dying patients with dementia was completed at all is unusual, and a positive readout gives researchers a concrete direction to pursue for a symptom that currently has few good options.