My husband has been on Aricept and Namenda and Lexapro for 3 ½ years. Has anyone stopped the medications and what happened?

Aricept does not appear to work at all for some patients. For others it only seems to help in the early stages. Aricept was developed for ALZ but it is often more effective for LBD. Do you know for sure what kind of dementia your husband has? (It was effective for 9+ years for my husband -- which I found out when we stopped it on hospice. We put him back on it.)

I have never heard the Lexapro has a limited period for being effective. It is not a dementia drug. It is for depression.

It can be very prudent to periodically check whether drugs are still effective. If you decide something should be discontinued, get the doctor's advice regarding a safe way to do that.

Also, never start or stop more than one drug at a time. If there are some complications, how will you know what drug is associated with the problem.

I am glad you are calling his doctor.

We all want to do the right thing for our loved one and it is often difficult to know what that is when it comes to medications. If you hear something from your caregiver group, discuss it with the doctor.

Fifteen pounds in only two weeks? Can he breathe OK or are his lungs filling up with fluids? If so, get to the ER.

Yes, he has a neurologist and I will call him tomorrow. since it has been reported that this medication stops in 2 years, I took it upon myself to stop the medication. As I said, "I will call him first thing in the morning".

You mention "doctors" as in more than one, what are the specialties of these mds? Are these the mds that actually prescribed the meds? I don't know about what your alzheimers group said unless they ALL have medical degrees.Did you stop the meds on doctors orders or did you just decide to do this yourself? Never stop a med all of a sudden especially without talking to the prescribing md first and discussing this. You need to get in touch with the md or mds that prescribed these meds and tell them what is happening.