One of the things I see touted on different sites is this or that drug to aid in the treatment of Alzheimer’s. Which is fine, though sometimes I wonder whether such comments are ‘astroturf‘ (actually advertisements for a company). Sometimes, these drugs can be a huge help.
But sometimes, the experiments don’t work. Here’s an excerpt from “July: Coming to terms” titled ‘Drug Problems’, which was originally an email I sent family members. We had started Martha Sr on a drug called Aricept, something her neurologist recommended. As the dosage ramped up according to instructions, we ran into problems:
In the last few weeks Martha Sr has been becoming increasingly hostile in her behavior towards me. This usually manifests anytime I ask her to use her walker correctly, to continue eating a meal when she’s become distracted, or to use her hands to support herself while sitting down, or to call when she is ready to rise from the toilet or get up from bed, et cetera. (Please note, she doesn’t always do this, but it is during these times that the hostility shows up.) At first, it was just a dismissive attitude, then it went to snide responses, then to challenges to my requests, and so forth. Initially I was able to just calmly explain that I’m asking her to do these things for her own safety, and that was that. But that became less likely to resolve her hostility as time went on. This evening, we had the first instance of actual combativeness, to the extent that she even tried to actually bite me. I was, of course, in no danger, and didn’t need to do anything other than move away from her. But the fact that she actually attempted this was significant.
This change in behavior, and increasing difficulties in our cajoling her to eat properly, seems to correspond to the time she started taking the Aricept (an Alzheimer’s drug to reduce memory loss and maintain cognitive function). The two things may not be related, but the timing is a cause for concern in my mind. It may be best to take her off the drug, see if the behavior changes. We will discuss it with Dr. M.
Dr. M was Martha Sr’s primary care physician, and we always had an excellent relationship with him. We did discuss it shortly thereafter, and he told us to take her off the drug. The change was remarkable, and almost immediate – within 24 hours of the last dose, she was back to her usual charming and cooperative (if confused) self.
That’s not to say that Aricept is a bad drug. Not at all. I know others who have found it to help their loved ones to a great extent.
But it is to say that you have to closely monitor these things, and keep track of possible problems. Sometimes, the experiments just don’t work – every person is different, and responds differently to a particular drug or therapy.
Jim D.
“Keeping busy around the house” can translate into a lot of different things: for us, working with Georgia to help her help out by staging certain tasks (assisting her with the laundry by dividing out the clothes for her, helping her carry them and keeping an eye on her when she’d fold ‘em, or helping her by staging a small area of a room for her to vacuum while helping her avoid tripping on the cord & helping to position the vacuum) served not only to help Georgia remain occupied – it also provided us a way to redirect her energies and our care-giving into trying to ensure the house didn’t get completely out of control. (Well, it worked for a while, at least.)
Other things we did to keep her mind engaged and still feel useful included gathering up loose change and putting it together into the appropriate rolls, then counting the money. Sometimes, this also included trips to the bank, and once in a while trips shopping after the bank.
If we hit a snag in our mid-day or evening schedules (and later, we’d intentionally schedule these elements), we began to do artsy-craftsy sorts of things.