Has anyone stopped giving their senior parent their memory pills?

My mom has LBD with Parkinson symptoms. She has been on a ton of meds over the last 5 years. She still takes Namenda xr and the Exelon patch. meds for seizures and meds for hallucinations. I asked her gerontologist what would happen if I just stopped her meds and he said that she would probably end up in the psych ward. He said he has seen it happen before and the patient stays in psych until the medications stabilize them. This frightens me enough to continue her medications.

The doctors do practice medicine. Don't try to treat yourself or your loved one. Ask, if it is time for the medications for memory to be stopped. My wife's doctor knows when that time will come for my wife who has Vascular Dementia. I will agree with the doctor if there is a time to take her off of the medications. In other words some folk will know more then the doctors and that can't be true since the doctors studied hard for their knowledge they are applying now. Don't go on alone - ask for help.

I think the memory pills like namenda are only useful in the early stages of dementia. They don't prolong life and don't do any good really once you get into moderate/advanced stages. All my mom's docs agreed after about 4 years on namenda there was no point to it anymore. Remember Alzheimers is a progressive terminal illness. There's no cure, and all the memory pills in thew world won't make a difference once the disease progresses to a certain point. I'm so sorry for what you are going through. It's a horrible disease to watch, but my advice is to go off the "memory pills." After a while, there's just nothing you can do but try your best to keep them comfortable and clean and safe.

Bunky, where is your mom? At home, or in a nursing home ot AzsstedLiving Facility? She needs to be seen by a geriatricpsychiatrist for her anxiety. Can you get her seen by someone like that?

If you can't, come back and tell us where you are.

What memory pill? There is not a drug that has been proven to even slow the decline. My mom took namenda for years, supposedly helped stabilize mood and slow progression, however I believe that is a false claim. After about four years of Namenda many are taken off, it is doing nothing to help memory, because there are no benefits shown that warrants taking them longer.