<p>I posted this in the “Caring for Elderly Parents” thread, but thought it might have more visibility on its own - apologies for not editing the post, which was addressed to the contributors to that thread. Thanks for any opinions, wisdom, venting…</p>
<p>Any comments on experiences with ARICEPT? I’ve just recently started reading this thread as my 93 yr old mother’s life drastically changed. Very helpful to come across a community of such enduring, wise and supportive (if battered…) people. My situation is not nearly as hard as many of yours - my mother just went into assisted living, which she has the savings to pay for till approx age 105. She needs a lot of the extra care services and seems to love the staff - and since she’s morphed from a fairly difficult and critical woman to a completely benign and adorable old lady, they love her back. She didn’t want to go, but seems now to be resigned, if not happy. Near-deaf, unsteady on her feet, increasingly forgetful and confused (vascular dementia, we think), but otherwise physically healthy. New doc, who I thought would be less aggressive, is pushing Aricept. I suspect it mostly benefits the manufacturer and don’t want to take a chance on the side effects. Agreed to start Namenda (not much faith in that either, but it seems more benign). Also, now that her meds are given to her, may be able to normalize her thyroid functions and B12 levels, which has some chance of improving her cognition.
Any perspective is much appreciated.</p>
<p>My mom and FIL were on aricept. The docs were clear that this would not improve cognition, but might slower the pace of increased loss. In both cases, they were removed from the medication.</p>
<p>My mom was on it too. It’s hard to know whether it does any good because you have no way of really comparing with/without. I am unconvinced that in my mom’s case it did much of anything.</p>
<p>My dad is on it. It helped reduce dementia for a while, and I think it’s still helping, but his mental function has really deteriorated over the last year. I don’t know if it’s still helping.</p>
<p>We decided against it for my mother. Despite the lovely TV commercials, in talking with the Assisted Living Staff and family members of other aging seniors, we also heard that it does nothing to restore cognition and probably not much to slow down the progression of the dementia.</p>
<p>I had an epiphany about a year ago, regarding my parents’ health. They are really, really old. Mental and physical deterioration are a fact of life for people in their late 80s. I decided it would be more in their best interest to accept that, than to be continually fighting a futile battle to turn back the clock. Nowadays, my goals for them are safety and comfort, not longevity (which they’ve already achieved anyway) or functioning at the same level they did 5 years ago, or even a year ago.</p>
<p>My dad was dx with mild Az in Nov 2011. Had been taking Aricept since. His tests came back 6 months later with an improvement of about 10%. Mom think he is deteriorating though and the next test is in May. We shall see. </p>
<p>He first took the medication orally which caused stomach upsets. Then we switched to a patch but putting on the patch proved to be …difficult so we went back to oral. I buy Florastor to help him with the stomach upsets.</p>
<p>Lasma, I love your “epiphany”, which is my own feeling as well. The new doc (very involved in brain issues b/c his college kid is schizophrenic, and unfortunately a bit too genuinely enthusiastic about better living through chemistry) also suggested Zoloft because my mother falls asleep wherever she’s sitting if she’s not dragged to an “activity” (where she may fall asleep also if she can’t hear anything), “Maybe it’s apathetic depression!”. She’s never been depressed. She’s just 93. Why not take a lot of naps? Anyway, I said never to the Zoloft and probably not to the Aricept.
Munchkin, I think it might be all too typical that the test scores say one thing and your mother says another. She can probably “score” him better than anyone.
Has anyone associated Aricept with actual meaningful improvement in their relatives? I’m very skeptical but don’t want to act only on my own fairly knee-jerk biases.</p>
<p>I honestly think the doctor TOLD us that aricept would NOT reverse cognitive impairment that had already taken place, but MIGHT slow down further cognitive impairment. </p>
<p>I don’t think there is a FDA drug that promises to reverse cognitive impairment.</p>
<p>Agreed with others…if I had it to do again, I would have said NO to a litany of drugs my mom was taking when she died. I’m not convinced they were “helping” HER at all but they did sedate her enough that she was no bother to the skilled care staff.</p>
<p>Ruthie, my parents sleep a lot too, as does my elderly cat. I think it’s a natural part of old age, not a condition to be fixed. But we’ve run into that “better living through chemistry” attitude too. If your doctor has a hammer, everything looks like a nail.</p>
<p>I had an epiphany about a year ago, regarding my parents’ health. They are really, really old. Mental and physical deterioration are a fact of life for people in their late 80s. I decided it would be more in their best interest to accept that, than to be continually fighting a futile battle to turn back the clock. Nowadays, my goals for them are safety and comfort, not longevity (which they’ve already achieved anyway) or functioning at the same level they did 5 years ago, or even a year ago. >>>>>>>></p>
<p>FIL suffered from dementia. Like thumper, we were told taking Aricept would not reverse any deterioration, but would hopefully slow down the progression. I believe it’s one of those drugs that you will never know if it really works.</p>
<p>Dementia is not inevitable. If you reach the age of 85, your chances are about one in two, which means that 50 percent of the very elderly are not cognitively impaired. And among those who do have dementia, it comes in all shapes and sizes. Some people can still function relatively independently, and others will require 24/7 care. It’s similar in this way to conditions such as Down’s syndrome or autism in range of functioning.</p>
<p>But although the individual dysfunction may vary, as a public health problem it is escalating. There 5 million with dementia will triple by 2050, as the long term care costs increase from about $115 billion to $400 billion. </p>
<p>Do not take this as medical advice for your personal situation, but, overall, the billions spent on Aricept should be diverted to increased staffing and services for the elderly. There is a slight statistically signicant improvement from talking Aricpect, which got it its FDA approval, but that’s a case study about how statistical significance doesn’t necessarily mean a meaningful, real world difference. For example, one of the supports for FDA approval was a statistically significant difference on a cognitive functioning scale. Looked at closely, the difference was 3 points on the 70 item scale–4 percent, not enough to make a difference in daily functioning. A UK study, looked at people living independently when diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. Those taking the drugs stayed out of nursing homes, on average, a mere two weeks longer than those not. </p>
<p>Drugs are expensive but rife among the elderly. Nursing home residents average 9 different ones each. But as far as anti-dementia, they are light-years cheaper than spending on the human touch–even if they don’t work and it’s really all those tranquilizer and (off label) anti-psychotics keeping out old folks in check. </p>
<p>Elders of the world unite, you have nothing to lose but your chemical chains. </p>
<p>Good luck with these tough decisions. My understanding is that Aricept and Namenda do absolutely nothing to reverse cognitive decline and have been shown to slow down the decline only slightly better than placebo – so they’re not exactly paragons of efficacy. Good friend’s wife has developed early onset Alzheimer’s in her 50’s. He has taken her to Mayo and Stanford. Both places told him the drugs are a waste of time and $$. Hopefully better treatments will emerge.</p>
<p>Another one chiming in that the drugs available are not worth any side effects. My mother, now deceased, was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease following an intensive evaluation at NYU <a href=“http://adc.med.nyu.edu/[/url]”>http://adc.med.nyu.edu/</a> and definitely had loss of memory, eventually lost most speech, etc. She was prescribed both aricept and namenda and did take them long term. I went along with it as initially my mom was making her own decisions and was happy to take anything her doctor suggested. But my research into these drugs indicated that, as others above have said, the are not at all curative and only potentially slow progression VERY slightly. At the time of my research Great Britain would not even cover them as their effectiveness was so minimal.</p>