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My mom is getting worse, remembers for about 30 seconds asks again. When I can't stand it any more I try to change the subject. I'm wondering if we should just take her off these meds. Dr suggested increasing dosage but since I have never seen them really help in the past 2 years I said no. Thoughts?

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Ya just gotta love a medication that can be sold and you don't know if it works or not.
There is no way you can predict a decline.
There is no way you can tell how fast the decline would have been with or without the medication.
And to top it off at a certain point the medication will no longer work. The decline has gotten to a point where the meds will not help, if they were to begin with.
All you can do in your best judgement is make a call.
There is no right or wrong decision here.
Yes there will be a decline but will it be faster than before or not? No way to tell.
There is nothing that will reverse the dementia so even if a cure came tomorrow there will be, for many of us, the slow decline of our loved one.
So ultimately it is your decision to take her off the medications. The result will be the same on or off the medications it is just a matter of time.
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The sad truth about dementia is that it always progresses. Namenda and Aricept help symptoms, like memory loss or confusion, but they are not cures. For some people, the relief of the symptoms of dementia are worth it. For others, it is not. Like the disease, each patient is a case-by-case discussion. Sometimes all it does is slow down the progression. You didn't see them help - maybe they slowed down the progression - in which case you would not see what happened later... My answer to doctors has become - what would you do if this was your parent/spouse/child? The answer may surprise you.
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When things are deteriorating as you say, anything is worth a try.
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Those meds were deteriorating my mom I don't think they're good for patients
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While these drugs may help some - they caused major reaction for my husband so discontinued. Paraphrasing the Aricept package - "It takes up to 3 months to work - if ever - maximum benefit 6 months to 1 year - then patient basically goes back to where they were before they started medicine. Can cause adverse reactions (like us) in some patients. It does not halt the progression of the disease - MAYBE slows it down for a period of time. For those that the later is true - it is a blessing. For those of us with the extreme opposite - I would never go near the stuff.
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My Mom took Aricept but the doc told me it was only affective for about a year. It did not have any noticeable negative affects but I did revisit it with the doc a year later and he did NOT suggest she keep taking it. She has good days and bad days now. Someday's, her memory is like 10 to 15 seconds long, other times we can go round and round with her not getting what I am saying at all (those are the scary days) and then somedays much better. I never know what I will be getting on a day to day basis so I just have to wait and see. It's a rough, horrible disease to deal with because when they are in this mid stage, you don't know when to "step in" and when not to with certain daily routines. I just keep waiting for the other shoe to drop (so to speak) where she will be completely dependent on me for EVERYTHING from dressing herself to eating and all hygeine. I am dreading it for both of us.
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We tried my husband on Aricept when he was in the beginning stages of dementia and it totally changed his personality from an easy-going guy to argumentative. I knew in about 2 days that this was not for him or me! Don't know about Namenda, but hesitate to try anything that isn't a "natural" supplement. I have him on a product I get in England and it seems to be working well. I give it to him at bedtime, as this is when the body does it's "repair" work. It's actually supposed to be for Parkinson's, but the dopamine seems to help the dementia as well.
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Over 3 years ago my mother (almost 92) was put on Namenda patches by a neurologist. She tended to try to remove them, but for the most part she wore them. A few months later, when she was in the hospital for particularly stubborn UTI, I brought up her use of this product. I was asked if I had noticed a difference, and after indicating I hadn't, they suggested discontinuing it. We discontinued it and noticed no changes at all as a result. She has gotten worse, but only at a very slow rate. However, we don't know if it's vascular dementia, Alzheimer's, or a combination, as the neurologist was unable to pinpoint the cause. She has had a few TIAs in the past but no serious strokes.
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My dad was on both meds and his behavior also increased in hostility and agitation. Since taking him off both, we actually see some of the old sense of humor my father had, (suddenly scaring me as I was cleaning him up in the morning and him saying "gotcha") I want his last days to be ones of quality and I am so glad I took him of these meds.
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When I agreed with my husband's hospice nurse that Aricept helped slow the progress of his Alzheimer's for only a few months, she took him off it.
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