Can anyone report any similar experiences and does it provide clues about further treatment?
My husband has late stage dementia but a few weeks ago, experienced a totally unexpected return of mental capacity. The changes were dramatic and do not fit with usual explanations of dementia being a progressive illness resulting from irreversible changes in the brain. We saw the real person again as he regained abilities that had slowly disappeared as the illness developed. He became aware of what was going on around him, engaged with family and friends, initiated conversation, started eating small amounts of normal food, could understand cause and effect and was extremely motivated to improve his situation through exercise and eating. As a final bonus he regained full continence! There was however a drawback in that he became very shaky and unsteady.
This all happened immediately after a change of anti-emetic from Metoclopramide to Cyclizine. Because of the physical side-effects, the Cyclizine dose was halved after a few days and this coincided with a slow loss of many of the mental improvements as well as the physical problems. Returning to a full Cyclizine dose did not change this. The GP concluded that stopping the Metoclopramide rather than introducing the Cyclizine had caused the change and has since (vainly) tried to ‘mimic’ something of its interaction with dopamine by introducing ropinerole.
Over the few weeks since this happened my husband has deteriorated very rapidly and is now infinitely worse than he was before the improvement took place.
Has anyone else seen anything similar happen? Does it offer any clues about further treatment?
His mental capacity had been buried for years and no-one would have believed it was still there, yet a few short weeks ago it returned to the surface. Can we unlock it again?
My husband has late stage dementia but a few weeks ago, experienced a totally unexpected return of mental capacity. The changes were dramatic and do not fit with usual explanations of dementia being a progressive illness resulting from irreversible changes in the brain. We saw the real person again as he regained abilities that had slowly disappeared as the illness developed. He became aware of what was going on around him, engaged with family and friends, initiated conversation, started eating small amounts of normal food, could understand cause and effect and was extremely motivated to improve his situation through exercise and eating. As a final bonus he regained full continence! There was however a drawback in that he became very shaky and unsteady.
This all happened immediately after a change of anti-emetic from Metoclopramide to Cyclizine. Because of the physical side-effects, the Cyclizine dose was halved after a few days and this coincided with a slow loss of many of the mental improvements as well as the physical problems. Returning to a full Cyclizine dose did not change this. The GP concluded that stopping the Metoclopramide rather than introducing the Cyclizine had caused the change and has since (vainly) tried to ‘mimic’ something of its interaction with dopamine by introducing ropinerole.
Over the few weeks since this happened my husband has deteriorated very rapidly and is now infinitely worse than he was before the improvement took place.
Has anyone else seen anything similar happen? Does it offer any clues about further treatment?
His mental capacity had been buried for years and no-one would have believed it was still there, yet a few short weeks ago it returned to the surface. Can we unlock it again?
