my husband is only 59 and only just that.
he has been diagnosed with alzheimers last summer, but previous to that he was diagnosed with vascular dementia, i have the feeling he has only been diagnosed as alzheimers because his consultant said if it was treated as vascular dementia there was no "cure" but treated as alzheimers he could go on aricept(donepizil) that was started in oct 05 the only time i see that the treatment does its work is if he forgets to take his medication or if i'm not around to ensure he has it , when he misses it he can become tired,irritableand sometimes nasty (vocally) if he has it regular he seems to be quite happy and pleasant most of the time. the most irritating thing for me as a carer is the fact that he finds it impossible to motivate himself to go out, even for a short walk, because he says his legs cramp up but i have found that if on the rare occasion i do get him to go out he can walk it out albeit it takes a long while, his motivation seems to have disappeared and he only seems to remember from his long term memory that the pubs used to be places of jollification of course most of them now are not (at least where we live they are quite the opposite) if i go away for a short break he becomes very disorientated and very confused even when my sons have been in to look after him (which he resents bitterly) i wondered if there are any of you out there that have experienced the same sort of thing, and if you have could i contact you to find out how you have dealt with it, i am in the process of buying ginko and giving omega 3 but again he resents having to take the medication. from time to time i have found that light massage helps with the circulation and he perks up a bit but after a couple of days he is very tired again and i have to put up with the "nowty" episodes as you can no doubt see i get "mixed signals "from him. he can go for a few days and be almost ok then he seems to drop into this "depression" please any feed back will be helpful.
Janice
he has been diagnosed with alzheimers last summer, but previous to that he was diagnosed with vascular dementia, i have the feeling he has only been diagnosed as alzheimers because his consultant said if it was treated as vascular dementia there was no "cure" but treated as alzheimers he could go on aricept(donepizil) that was started in oct 05 the only time i see that the treatment does its work is if he forgets to take his medication or if i'm not around to ensure he has it , when he misses it he can become tired,irritableand sometimes nasty (vocally) if he has it regular he seems to be quite happy and pleasant most of the time. the most irritating thing for me as a carer is the fact that he finds it impossible to motivate himself to go out, even for a short walk, because he says his legs cramp up but i have found that if on the rare occasion i do get him to go out he can walk it out albeit it takes a long while, his motivation seems to have disappeared and he only seems to remember from his long term memory that the pubs used to be places of jollification of course most of them now are not (at least where we live they are quite the opposite) if i go away for a short break he becomes very disorientated and very confused even when my sons have been in to look after him (which he resents bitterly) i wondered if there are any of you out there that have experienced the same sort of thing, and if you have could i contact you to find out how you have dealt with it, i am in the process of buying ginko and giving omega 3 but again he resents having to take the medication. from time to time i have found that light massage helps with the circulation and he perks up a bit but after a couple of days he is very tired again and i have to put up with the "nowty" episodes as you can no doubt see i get "mixed signals "from him. he can go for a few days and be almost ok then he seems to drop into this "depression" please any feed back will be helpful.
Janice
