Dear Nana,

You have lucked upon the best of all possible places to be in your
position.   This newsgroup helped me through many years of difficulty
when I was caregiver for my mother in law throughout her illness.
Welcome to the place nobody wants to be, but is very glad they found.

Aricept is a good medication, at least it was for my mother in law.
There was a definite difference when she stopped it briefly, so we
resumed it again.   There is a website associated with this newsgroup,
I hope it is still up and running.  At any rate, this is the link.   I
think you will find a great deal of interest to you there.

http://www.muggsmulcher.com/kstuff/a.s.a/links.htm#drugreferences

Good luck,

Evelyn

Hi Nana,

I'm sorry to hear that you and your family have to deal with this. The
aricept helped my mother in law immensely. It slows the progress of AD
for most people. Your mom will probably have a lot of good days mixed
with not so good days. You and your family can help each other as you
help her through the not so good days so that she can get to the good
days.

There is a local AD support group here hosted by the regional medical
center. They meet once per month. It is very helpful to gather with
other care givers and AD family members to compare notes, share
experiences, and share tips. I would suggest asking about a similar
group in your own area.

I will light a candle and offer some words for your mom, you, and your
family.

Bill

You know that every heart here aches for you.  I'm really, really sorry.

I will give you just a couple of thoughts from my place a few years down
this road:

1) Make sure someone trusted has your mother's power of attorney and
medical power of attorney.  Get it *now*.  You do *not* want to be
trying to talk her into it when she gets far enough along that she's
oblivious to the fact that there's something wrong with her.

2) There's a strong urge to "respect your parent's dignity" by trying to
keep them in their own home (or your home) as long as possible.  Fight
this urge.  Of all the things we did, the one we regret the most is
helping Mom stay in her home until it quite suddenly became urgent that
she go into a locked door ward, because she became paranoid of my
brother, who (along with my darling SIL) was her primary helper.  We had
to *force* her into care, and it was a big mess.

Worse, because she was so far along, adjusting to a new situation was
nearly impossible for her, and she *plummeted* downhill.  I could have
semi-sensible conversations with her as recently as last July; now she
can barely speak, shows a lot of inappropriate behaviors (like licking
her ex-husband's (my dad's) hand) and simply walks in circles all day.
We're sadly convinced that had we talked her into assisted living as
soon as she was diagnosed -- when she was addled, but could understand
there was something wrong with her, knew who we all were, etc -- she
would have adjusted pretty easily, and might well be there still, since
it would have been familiar.

Welcome to the club no one wants to join.  You will find much wisdom,
kindness, and support here.

Dana