prescription treatments

DHVT

I know individual results vary a lot, but in general:

1.  Are the drugs proving to be worthwhile, in terms of symptom alleviation being more significant than the side effects?

2. Is the choice of which Rx to try first pretty much a random choice, or will certain patients and symptoms lead to one specific drug over another?

M1

Sadly, there really is no disease-modifying therapy yet that prevents progression of disease.  Up to Date, which is an evidence-based online medical resource, states that about one in twelve will be helped and one in twelve will have side effects. If I can get the link to work I'll post it....regarding your second question, there is kind of a hierarchy of drugs, with Aricept/donepizil best in early disease, and mematine/namenda for moderate stage. Not sure where Exelon fits in there. I personally have never seen anyone benefit, but t h e study data say there's modest benefit statistically.

Quilting brings calm

My LO is on the generic Exelon patch.  Doctor thought it would take about 3 months to see any improvement.  Which is about how long she has been on it.  Haven’t seen any improvement nor any side effects.  The only side effects I’ve seen is from the generic Xanax that she was put on  to allow her to sleep at night ( rather than be up disturbing my dad and wandering the halls at the ASL).  It also keeps her calm during the day, minimizing the crying jags.  She seems a little drowsy on two doses a day( she was originally prescribed 4).

jfkoc

Treatment falls in to two areas...medical and non-medical and there have been studies that seem to say that the non-medical can be just as effective as drugs. That said it take a lot of education for a caregiver to be effective.

Drugs...one always must pay attention. Our pharmacist made certain that I was familiar with my husbands drugs before purchasing. She put me onto drugs.com but there are other sites. Each drug was evaluated based on side effects and interaction as well as appropriateness for his particular dementia.

So I really did do a lot of caregiver homework and I dutifully checked out each med but when I was in way over my head drugs took over. He stared with a small dose of Serequel which was titrated up. For sleep the Dr recommended Valerian Root capsules...took a while for those to grab hold but they very very effective.

The last month nothing seem to work and the last week haldol was used. 

Hope this helps.

T

DHVT

Thank you all for the guidance.

Can these drugs potentially help with confusion, loss of memory, or loss of life skills?

M1

Dhvt the drugs for symptoms like agitation or delusions are typically more effective than the drugs that are approved for memory loss/dementia.  There are a number of drugs used for symptoms and behaviors , like seroquel, Zyprexa, risperdal, depakote, haldol, xanax-these are also used for other neurologic illnesses like bipolar disorder, seizures, or schizophrenia.  The drugs approved for dementia per se like Aricept, namenda, exelon are not very effective.