Neurologist appointment yesterday

MaryG123

Hi All,

We had our first visit with a neurologist yesterday, and he has ordered  a CT, angiogram, and EEG.  They administered the Montreal Mental Exam, with borderline results (25).  I have to say though that they were easy graders, as he couldn’t remember the word list until they provided lots of prompts, then gave him full points.  He failed the subtraction exercise and his drawings of the 3D box and clock face were pretty poor as well.  We have both noticed his loss of math skills.  It will serve as a baseline though.

I asked the doc about statins and memory loss and he doesn’t feel that there is sufficient scientific evidence to warrant stopping it.  I was wondering what your docs have said about this issue?

Thanks for listening and hugs to you all.

Ed1937

I am not a doctor, and we never discussed that with our doctor. I always felt that the benefits of taking statins, which were working, outweighed the risks.

harshedbuzz

MaryG-

It can be useful to have a MoCA baseline for the future. It's like a snapshot of a given day.

My dad tended to score pretty well on these even well into the disease process; I expect he brought some cognitive reserve to the party. He could do serial subtraction faster than my mom who doesn't have dementia until about 6 months before he died. That same day he bragged about how well he did all the way down to the valet stand and climbed into some poor little old lady's car when I turned my back. 

The prompts to recall word lists are a part of the test. This part was always more challenging for dad but earlier in the disease the prompts helped. Later no amount of prompting helped. The last time one of the words was "Rose" which was his mom's name. I was surprised he not only lost it on the first pass but also when he offered up "lily" when prompted with "a kind of flower". 

I have heard about the study on statins. I'm told it was based on a smaller study and that the results were specific to those on lipophilic medications. If it's a concern and his cardiologist or PCP are OK with it, you could ask to trial a hydrophilic one. We kept dad on his Lipitor until we switched to a palliative model of care in stage 6. 

Anecdotes.

My mom went off her statin for about 5-9 months when dad was nearing the end of his life. Her sister-- who is pretty nutty-- had "feelings" about them. Mom also let her BP and COPD meds go unrenewed for about 3 months as well. Two months after dad died she was in crisis in the ER. I'd noticed she'd gotten "odd" in the weeks leading up to this hospitalization-- forgetful, suspicious and moody. I wonder if I was seeing grief or if I was staring to lose her to dementia. Long story short, once her meds were back on board with appropriate BP and plaques improving, she went back to being her old self.

One of my mom's other sisters had vascular dementia and had stopped taking her statin for a couple years. The nutty sister was able to obtain guardianship after finding her in a cold dark house about to be sold for taxes. She had her diagnosed and restarted the statin on the suggestion of her neurologist. That, along with a top notch MCF, seemed to bring some improved function in her day to day. 

HB

Pat6177

My DH has mixed dementia - ALZ and vascular. When I brought up the question of statins and dementia to his cardiologist, he was very noncommittal. The doc did feel that statins might definitely help with the vascular dementia. So DH is still taking his simvastatin. I tried to get DH to take Co-Q 10 since I had read that statins depleted that but DH just wouldn’t take it because it was new and I decided not to fight that battle.

MaryG123

Thanks all.  I think we’ll continue the statin for now, as he has a strong family history of atherosclerosis and heart disease and it’s doing a good job of controlling his cholesterol.