Hi June,

Dementia is such a strange thing, and there are so many ways it can
manifest, and I am sure there are many more causes than we know about.   In
my mother in law's case, the Aricept made a clear and extremely noticeable
difference when she was on it, and the reverse when she wasn't.

In your mom's case, it doesn't sound like it is so clear at all.   In my
opinion you are probably the best judge of how your loved one is reacting to
a medication, since you are the one with the functioning brain.

From what you seem to be saying here, there is no clear difference that you
can see whether she is on it or off it, excepting the gastric upsets are
more noticeable, but then you don't really have a true picture either.

A person who has a prescription for one month that lasts for three is
definitely not getting the levels in her bloodstream that she needs to
really do anything worthwhile.   Also it is a pretty safe bet that if she
has been diagnosed with dementia in the first place, she may be doubling up
on it some days and not taking it at all on others.

This is definitely a really good way to get gastric upsets from it, in fact
that is EXACTLY what my mother in law was doing before we took over her
health care and all other aspects of her life, including bathing, etc.
She was not eating, bathing, taking her meds on time or in the proper
amounts (though she thought she was doing all those things just fine!)

What I think is that you really need to know whether it is helping or not,
and that means you may have experiment a little bit.    You could
conceivably stop it altogether, and see what happens.   Or you could arrange
to have the medication given to her with food at a specific time every day,
and not leave it in her hands to decide when and if to take it.

Since the drug is known to help others, maybe being really careful about how
often she takes it and that it is taken with food, might be the key, but
that would still leave you with doubts as to its effectiveness in her case.
I would try BOTH approaches.   Start by giving it regularly for a while,
then later on at some point stop it altogether.   If you notice
deterioration, you can resume it again right away.   We did that with my
mother in law with the doctor's knowledge.   In our case she DID get worse
when it was stopped, and she DID get better when it was resumed.

June <ljbart@hotmail.com> is alleged to have said:

A patient always has the right to refuse a treatment.  In this case,
your brother with the POA can refuse the continued prescription for
Aricept for your mother.