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My husband has had progressive dementia since 2001 at age 59. He has had a shunt for normal pressure hydrocephylus which helped for 2 years. Is now on Namenda 5mg. 2xdaily. Tried herbs, vitamins etc. with little to no help. Do you have any suggestions? I do not like the effects of the Namenda but can not care for him without it.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at January 11, 2009 11:00 AM by Dr. Kennedy.

Treatment of such a case depends entirely on diagnosis. If this is true Alzheimer’s, you may be doing the best that can be done. If this is secondary to circulatory shutdown, then there are intravenous therapies which can help - IV EDTA for small vessel disease, and a special preparation of IV phosphytidal choline (PTC) (a formula called Plaquex in Europe) for large vessel disease, or you may consider surgery for large vessel disease. If this is a vascular problem, chances are good it is small vessel disease and that would be diagnosed by PET scan. The other possibility is that this is a toxic syndrome from mercury, lead, or other heavy metals and for such a diagnosis you need a doctor who specializes in heavy metal toxicity to administer what is called a DMPS Challenge Test (no other test will do). Sometimes doctors overlook the other possibilities and assume it is simple dementia or Alzheimer’s, but I believe all other possibilities must be ruled out.