Recommended meds for anxiety and obsessions?

michiganpat

I am going to be seeing my primary care doctor soon (she is also my husbands doctor) and am going to push for meds for my husband to control his obsessions and anxiety. He has anosognosia. Has anyone used Zoloft/sertraline with good results? Are there other meds to consider? Our doctor is fairly young and I am not sure she has much understanding of dementia. I would like to be able to offer suggestions. Thank you for any input.

M1

Pat, I did some research on this, and while sertraline/zoloft is reasonable, the studies that have been done show that Celexa (citalopram) actually has the best track record of any of the SSRI's in dementia. So I would ask about that one. My partner was recently switched from Zoloft to Celexa, but I can't really say that I've noticed a big difference, she is calmer because she also has Ativan on board and has progressed in her disease. You will want to start one thing at at time, but for obsessions specifically, you may have better luck with an atypical antipsychotic like Seroquel or Risperdal.

CindyBum

My DWs anxiety is severe. She's always been an anxious person, but the dementia has made it so much worse.

She is on both Lexapro and Gabapentin. The geriatric pscyh prescribed the Gabapentin about a year after she'd gone on Lexapro and it's really helped her anxiety.