My husband was just diagnosed with “Mild Alzheimer’s Dementia with vascular contributing factors.” He had been on Aricept for a year in 2020, but he saw no benefit since his cognitive issues got worse. (Plus he didn’t care for the neurologist so he stopped seeing her.)
Has anyone/anyone’s LO taken any of the new drugs for Alzheimer’s with any benefits or issues? I am not sure how anyone can test if it does what it is supposed to — slow the progression — since everyone is different and they may have well had a slow progression anyway… But… I do worry about the serious side effects…
My husband’s progression appears to be slow to me. I have seen little changes over the past 3 years. He has gone from being diagnosed with MCI in 2020 to having Mild Alzheimer’s today (appears to be stage 4 (out of 7)). But it has been very gradual. We will see what happens in the next year when he goes for the testing again.
Hard to say if the drugs worked.
The thing that definitely worked was diet. I got about a 25% improvement via diet.
Unprocessed foods (nothing with an ingredient list), low to no sugar,
Breakfast was usually: eggs, bacon, gluten free toast with butter, fruit including blueberries
Lunch was: protein, veggie, carb (rice, white potato or sweet potato)
Dinner was: same as lunch
Treats: occasional ice cream
Mom is a celiac and her caregivers were giving her a lot of sweet processed gluten free junk food. Dad passed and I took charge of Mom. The switch to the above was a dramatic difference.
Eating junk food/ processed foods: Mom sat like a blob and did not talk
Eating unprocessed foods (see above), Mom talked, walked and was engaged.
This conversation took place probably 15 years ago and I never forgot it. Maybe the newer drugs are more promising. I really hope so.
We do not have her tested there is no reason to, it means nothing unless the person has Parkinson's. We can tell where she is at by observing her.
No magic pill developed yet.
The worst of the side effects is the fear of a brain bleed. IN all honesty, until these are proving I would not be taking anything with that side effect. That would just be too much risk for something VERY expensive and so far, to my mind, very unproven. I do know medicare is covering some. Don't know which and don't know for how much of the cost.
I am sorry to hear of this diagnosis. As you already observed, MA, you can't prove a negative. You can't prove a positive when you cannot measure it, and given a diagnosis like this people do progress irratically and not like another. It is very hard to measure outcome on medications like this with an illness like dementia, where every patient is as individual as his or her own thumbprint.
also rexulti. The only improvement I see
now with the rexulti is that he is more
calm and sleeps better. Less agitation
and anger.
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