:confused:

Well, my 82 year old Mom who was getting worse (slowly) with memory was also having a horrible time with running sores all over her body. This went on for several months and coincided with her new med: Namenda. If you read or remember my post, I was frustrated with doctors not having a clue what to do about this. Well, I got online and found an immunologist who, basically said that this is an allergy (for sure!) and put her on a regimen of prednisone and a routine to topically treat the systemic skin mess. But along with that, he encouraged us to either pull back on the aricept, discontinue the namenda (if the GP agreed). This is the surprising result : Keeping her other meds the same but stopping Namenda and cutting the Aricept to half (every other day...and yeah, I know my dad shouldn't do that w/o a doctor's OK, but they're hard to get to see!).....mom is BACK!! I mean her memory is much, much better for the short term stuff that was LOST (or seemed so) before. It's early to draw conclusions, I know, since it has only been a week since she started the prednisone and halved the Aricept. (Doctor highly suspected Aricept, and or Namenda on her skin condition). This result was totally unexpected and I think we will just find a neurologist we like (as the immuno-guy suggested we do)--to monitor the Aricept (if we even continue with it). Have any of you heard of anything like this? I am very suspicious of those two meds now, just from our (unusual, probably) experience! ~ Librarygal59

I'm glad the skin condition cleared up, and it is GREAT to have improvement in memory. Amazing. I almost think the whole thing may have been caused not by Alzheimer's or another dementia but by some systemic disease that is responding to the steroid. I never heard of anyone getting their memory back on either of the drugs above, or by stopping them ...

I hope you get to the bottom of all this.

Love,

Martha

I'm with you Martha. It sounds like some underlying condition, other than dementia, is responding to the steroid treatment. There are many conditions that mimick dementia and many conditions that can be treated with steroids. Both seem to be a catch all... as is dementia. For whatever reason I am glad your Mom's skin condition and cognitive abilities are better Library. I hope it stays that way.

Love, deb

DGabriel and Martha:

Thanks for your input. I have to remember that I've posted and need to check this message board. (Maybe it's ME we need to be getting the neurologist for, huh? LOL!).....But thanks for that. I am so very, very lucky. Both parents really not CLOSE to needing round the clock care and they're 82/83 yrs. old. I realize that can happen OVERNIGHT almost, though. This board will be a huge help to me THEN!! Thanks, you 2~ Librarygal59