Aricept

[oldfella]

Hi can anyone give me some advise, my wife has been on Aricept now for about three and a half years, on her last asessement they were talking about stopping them. How long should someone be taking them for, or me being synical is this a cost saving thing.

 

[Pheath]

Hi – I’ve had to battle on more than one occasion with the memory clinic and more recently with dad’s care home doc. to keep him on Aricept (he’s been on it about 8yrs) There’s a school of thought that a lot of docs. subscribe to that when someone’s memory score dips below a certain level or they’re more advanced, Aricept should be automatically withdrawn; perhaps it's cost driven I’m unsure. Others will of course have different experiences but I can only say it was very detrimental to dad when this med was stopped. His mobility, speech, and limited cognition all dipped significantly. As soon as it was restarted things improved again. Both NICE and also the Alz Society now say there’s evidence that even in the later stages Aricept can have a beneficial effect. It’s not a terribly expensive med either, approx £15 a month i think. Some people don’t seem different when the med. is stopped but if you find your wife worse make sure your concerns are heard by the doc. as it should be reinstated. The decline in dad wasn't obvious for a couple of weeks as it was probably still in his system.

 

[tre]

I would be tempted to think this was a penny pinching exercise unless they think the medication is causing problem side effects. As Aricept is supposed to slow the progress of the disease it is very difficlt to tell whether it is beneficial or not as you do not know how fast the disease may progress without it. I would put this to the prescribing doctor and if they insist that aricept is not of benefit in the later stages point out the NICE guidelines or up the ante by asking it to be replaced by Ebixa.
Tre

 

[Fozzy]

My mum has been on aricept since jan and has had three tests of cognitive function.dec2012 mum scored 13 out of 30 and the memory nurse said he would speak to the consultant to see whether they should change mums medication to ebixa.IS this normal?he phoned back two weeks later and said that the consultant would rather use the ebixa for later stages.What would you do?

 

[Izzy]

My husband was on Aricept for about 10 years. They decided to change this to Exelon then and I agreed as I knew it was the same kind of drug (anticholinesterase inhibitor). His score on the MMSE has gone down progressively over the years and although I don't know his actual recent score I would suspect it would be 10 or below. They wanted to take him off Exelon and put him on Ebixa. I know that this is a different kind of drug and not designed to slow down the progress of the disease. I argued my case and he has been allowed to stay on Exelon. I don't know if it's helping him now or not but I'm too scared to take the chance of him coming off it in case the decline is more rapid. If I were you I would fight to keep the Aricept.