My wife was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease in July 2021. Looking back, I can see the beginning as early as 2015. She has no short term memory at this point. None. Otherwise, there has been remarkably little cognitive decline. She continues to be able to feed, dress, bathe and toilet; all the ADL’s. Leave well-enough alone?
I read long ago with ALZ you have to form new pathways. If you brush your teeth with your right hand, use your left. Keep your mind active but it has to be different things. Doing crossword puzzles when u have never done them is good. But if you do them daily, you are not making new pathways. Never crocheted, learn, new pathway. One thing you should stop is Statins. They do effect cognitivity.
"GLP-1 medications are a class of medications that mainly help manage blood sugar levels in people with Type 2 diabetes123. They also help treat obesity by stimulating insulin secretion and slowing glucagon release124. GLP-1 medications are mostly injectable, but some can be taken orally135. Examples of GLP-1 medications include235:
Ozempic, Victoza, Saxenda, and Wegovy (semaglutide or liraglutide)
Byetta and Bydureon (exenatide)
Trulicity (dulaglutide)
Adlyxin (lixisenatide)
Rybelsus (oral semaglutide)".
Giving medications for "off label" conditions has become common, and VERY lucrative for the medical industry in general and for pharmaceuticals in particular. It is currently, regulation wise, very "anything goes" out there. And this is increasing. As a nurse I remember seeing it first when the new medication neurontin came out -- a seizure medication. Turns out suddenly it was being ordered for just about everything and a hangnail. Turns out also that it was GOOD for quite a number of things. People can in this way at times be a sort of guinea pig. If it works, great (but often sugar pills "work"). If it doesn't work you can be the canary in the coal mine.
Your best way to go about it in these cases is do on line research and discuss it with the MD treating your loved one's condition. These are VERY expensive drugs. I have a FB friend who recently used it for weight loss, total 14 pounds over three months. She is happy. I believe she looks haggard. She has a good deal of gastro-intestinal distress which she feels was worth it.
So, as they always say................"Ask your doctor".
I wish you good luck.
By the way, she is 80. Her mother and grandmother both had, similar, but undiagnosed, symptoms.
1. Even if a drug could cure dementia (and that would be a huge task as there are so many types of dementia) the damage to the brain is permanent. At what point is a certain amount of damage acceptable? Nothing will reverse the damage that has been done.
2. I am a firm believer is Drug Trials, Clinical Trials. You never know what might happen. I had my Husband in a clinical trial and I do believe that he benefited from it. I think he was able to do some things longer than would have been possible otherwise. But that is my belief if that stems from wishful thinking or being positive about the whole thing then so be it. I will never know if it worked or not. I chose to believe it helped.
3. You have noting to lose. HOWEVER I would never do anything that was not covered by insurance. Chasing "Snake oil Cures" will not help. Unethical people that prey on people that have little hope deserve a special place in he11.
And now that I am personally on the other side of dementia with my late husband, I see no good reason to try and prolong any of it, as there are no happy endings with dementia.
If in fact your wife has been diagnosed with Alzheimer's, you already know that that is the slowest progressing of all the dementias and can go on for 20+ years, so the fact that your wife is still able to to do her ADL's should not be surprising.
However as the disease progresses she will lose more and more.
I would just "leave well enough alone" and try best you can to just enjoy whatever time you may have left with her.
God bless you as you travel this very hard journey with your wife.