Aricept

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M1

I wouldn't use it. Spitting in the wind. Who is this doc?

mrahope

In my experience, Aricept did nothing to calm angry outbursts or slow progression. Have not tried Seroquel for DH as yet.

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jfkoc

My husband's neuro also said he thought Aricept was useless.

M1

I personally never saw anyone benefit from it (thirty years in practice). But some here would disagree.

SSHarkey

It made a significant difference for my husband, but only lasted 3 months. And that was early in his diagnosis!

Phoenix1966

My grandmother was prescribed it late into the disease(she probably had been suffering from vascular dementia and Alzheimer’s for 12+ years), but very early in the official diagnosis. It did not benefit her at all.

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l7pla1w2

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/202258#Comment_202258

How about memantine? DW's neuro has her on both Aricept and memantine. I don't think they're doing anything for her, but how could you tell? The neuro did say she could discontinue the memantine, but I was afraid to do that in case it really was doing something.

Aside: DW asks what that blue pill is for. I tell her "to improve memory", and we both laugh.

WIGO23

My DH has mild to moderate dementia due to ALZ. He started Aricept about five months after diagnosis last year. I too wonder if it helps because I see him slowly losing more of his short term memory (especially); confusion increasing in new places; word choices that are confusing to follow. Is this being slowed by Aricept? How could we ever know?

But, he has no side effects from it, so he takes it. It is all we have at this point.

Quilting brings calm

It’s very hard to know if Aricept, rivastegmine or others work. The disease can remain stable with no drugs, decline with no drugs, stay stable with drugs, or decline with drugs. Each patients timeline is different. Each decline for one patient is different. So how can you possibly tell if the memory drugs do anything? And the side effects are such that many people can’t take the needed dosage.

At least you can tell if Seraquel is working. The patient either calms down or they don’t.

l7pla1w2

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/202330#Comment_202330

So how can you possibly tell if the memory drugs do anything?

I've wondered how the clinical studies reach a conclusion that any of these meds do anything.

So far, DW does not seem to exhibit any side effects from Aricept/donepezil or Memantine.

Marta

In controlled clinical studies where some got Aricept and others didn’t, a comparison of progression of dementia between the two groups favored Aricept in a statistically significant way. Whether this difference was clinically significant (in real life) remains open for discussion.

Knowing this, I still offered Aricept to my husband. It was all we had. I also had him participate in one of the trials with monoclonal antibodies, which failed. After that, I signed him up for infusion of intravenous immune globulin without any data that it was effective. Desperate people, desperate times.

M1

Article in the Washington Post this morning about spectacular post-market failure of an ALS drug, and how the FDA has overshot in approving therapies with questionable benefit. We're definitely due for a course correction.

I never saw benefit from memantine either. The studies have suggested 1 in 12 will benefit from the cholinesterase drugs, 1 in 12 will have significant side effects, and for 10/12 they will make no difference.