Alzheimer's Disease
Alzheimer's disease is an illness of the brain. It causes the brain to lose nerve cells, leading to problems with memory, thinking, feeling and everyday living. Alzheimer's disease can affect you in many ways. It can affect the way you think and how you act. It can affect your mood and even how you talk and move. Many people mistake the early symptoms of Alzheimer's disease, especially memory loss, as a normal part of aging, and therefore do not seek help.
Although it is not yet known how to prevent Alzheimer's disease, its symptoms can be treated. There are medications that can be taken to help treat the symptoms of Alzheimer's. However if a person takes to many medications, there is an increased risk of having an adverse reaction, including confusion, agitation, sleepiness or sleeplessiness, mood swings, memory problems and/or stomach upset. While it may become necessary for a person to take medicine to treat the severe symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease-- such as hallucinations or aggressive behavior-- some of these medications can worsen other symptoms of the disease.
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Some drugs such as tranquilizers can cause confusion, increased memory impairment, and slowed reactions, which can lead to falls.
Certain medicines to treat depression, particularly Elavil (nortryptiline), can cause sedation. These drugs also can react with medicines used to treat alzheimer's disease, including Cognex (tacrine) and Aricept (donepezil).
Some medicine used to treat hallucinations can cause sedation, confusion and drops in blood pressure. They also can react with medicines used to treat Alzheimer's disease.
It is important that if you have Alzheimer's that you talk to your doctor about all the side affects of any treatment options. Also discuss what side effects there are for some over the counter medicines. Over-the-counter medicines may also...