They gave my husband about another 6 months, I think it was worth it.

My husband was on Aricept for almost 9 years it is said to only help durning the early to mid stages.They put him on Namanda in his mid stages and is still on it.
I believe they helped Ken mostly in the beginning, he was more alert and seemed happier.
I still give Ken Namanda but, I do not believe it helps and I am not sure why I continue, After he is out of this perscription I will not refill.
I know ,it seems I can get more feed back from this site than from my doctors,I think that it affects every person different so they don't want to commit to anythiing plus there are only a handful of meds for Alzs.

These meds affect each person different . I am surprised that they would cause her to wonder or be violent I havn't heard of that ever being a side effect. Have they checked into an antidepressant or one of the meds that help with anixity ?

Good luck and let us know how it works out.

My mom has been using Aricept for over 10 years and I am in the process of taking her off of it. Dr. tried to combine this with Namenda when she was in start of middle stage but it made her sleepy and worse so I stopped the Namenda. The cost of the Aricept has almost bankrupted her. I question whether it has done anything. Maybe when she was first diagnosed but the drugs become useless over extended use and are not proven to help in the later stages.

I got this booklet "Caring for a Person with Alzheimer's Disease" free from the National Institute on Aging (link below) and in the back is an extensive list of medications, what they are used for, precautions, and what not to take. Very helpful. However, it took me 3 weeks after the request before I got the booklet. (136 pages)

http://newcart.niapublications.org/shopdisplayproducts.aspx?id=46&cat=Alzheimer%27s+Disease+Information

My mother does not wander and has short bursts of anger which are controlled by my actions/reactions to her so I have not had to use medication for these behaviors.

I just noticed a Medication Fact sheet that is available in down loadable .pdf format on the National Institute on Aging, Alzheimer's medication that might help. Explore the main page on the site, it has a lot of good publications free.

http://www.nia.nih.gov/Alzheimers/Publications/medicationsfs.htm

Right at the moment my mother is on both Aricept and Namenda. Aricept helped in the beginning tremendously then Namenda did the same later on. I can't imagine how difficult it would have been without them. Mother used to really mean but she's calmed down a bit as she goes on. I don't think she has the energy for it anymore.

However........... different drugs do different things to different people. I have a friend who's mother in law wondered and was just downright a mean person. Nothing helped her..... nothing. She was asked to leave 3 different nursing home because she was so difficult to handle. It just happens and there doesn't seem to be much anyone can do about it except drug them into a non-coherent state. No respectable Dr. would do that........ I don't think.

I put my mom on these drugs . All I got was someome who would fight me on every thing.( taking a bath ,eating, going to bed,) I think she was on them for about month.

They didn't bring my mom back it was worth the try .

Wow. Was that ever interesting. The side effects of Namenda: Dizziness, headache, constipation, confusion are all of which my mother suffers.
I'm calling her neurologist first thing Monday morning. Maybe she shouldn't be on it at all?