Coming off medication

[JenniferW]

My mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's around two and a half years ago, and has been taking Aricept since then, and is now on the maximum dose of that. She has the 6-monthly memory tests, and what's interesting is that the results are much of a muchness. Sometimes she's a point or two better, sometimes a point or two lower, but then it goes back again to where she was before.

Because of this, my sister recently raised a logical question - what was the medication doing? Is it making any difference? What would happen if she stopped taking it?

The context of this is that despite being 90, my mother has no other medication whatsoever. She's not ailment-free, but there's nothing that can be done for her other medical conditions. She still lives on her own in her own home (with support of various sorts, but minimal carer input because she doesn't want it, and to be honest, is coping well enough).

 

[allthings]

I would be very wary of taking anybody off aricept, it happened to my wife and she plummeted, she is now back on it and fairly stable now but lost more abilities which have never been regained so beware.

 

[jenniferpa]

If she's not getting any side effects from the meds, and she remains stable, I'm not sure what you think might be gained by taking her off them? All dementias are progressive, so if she's not getting worse, it seems as if the meds are actually doing what they are supposed to be doing.

 

[Canadian Joanne]

My mother was on Aricept for several years and has now been on Ebixa and Reminyl for several more. She is in a wheelchair, doubly incontinent, cannot feed or do anything for herself and basically speaks only one or two words. However, with all of that, my sister and I have decided that we will keep our mother on the Alzheimer's drugs as long as she is physically capable of taking them. We are afraid she will start to decline and she has been quite stable for 3 or 4 years now. There is decline but it is very, very gradual and is measured by comparing year to year and not month to month.

I have seen what happened to a friend's mother when taken off Aricept for 6 weeks. She had a steep decline and was put back on it. Like allthings wife, she never got back to the level she was at before the drug was withdrawn.

 

[JenniferW]

Helpful responses

Thank you - all of you who responded to my question.

When my sister raised this as a possibility, I honestly didn't know what to think. We're learning about this as we go along. So hearing about other people's experiences really help us - whatever question I seem to post on the forums.

 

[Pheath]

We also had a very adverse reaction when dad was taken off Aricept. I’m glad your mum seems so stable at present and is still able to live relatively independently. As others have said, I can see no reason for removing it.