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My family has visited some senior living facilities for my mother-in-law who is in mid stage Alzheimer's. She has been seeing a neurologist who specializes in memory and has been prescribed Seroquel and Aricept. It has been suggested to us that we consult with a psychiatrist and request DNA testing to help facilitate the best match for medication. Does anybody have any experience with this? Is this really a thing?

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I have not heard of DNA testing helping with drug choices and administration. The truth is that each patient is as individual as his or her thumb prints. Drugs and drug cocktails need to be assessed and hopefully by a caregiver present daily to assess what works, what might not. Even when the right drugs are tried and work, just because they work today doesn't mean that they will work tomorrow. And then there are side effects to consider because almost any mood/mind -altering drugs have the unfortunate side effects of making poor balance worse yet, and of contributing to falls, etc.
Sure wish you luck.
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abrown100, welcome to the forum. Yes, I have had the DNA test [Alpha Genomix Comprehensive] to help decide what medications would work best for me. The DNA test answered questions as to why certain family of drugs weren't working and/or causing weird side effects.

Example, I have acid reflux. The doctor tried many different prescription meds and the meds gave me zero help. Sure enough, there was a list on my DNA chart that showed what meds to avoid, and it was those. Thus, good old fashion Tums does the trick :)

Recently my primary doctor was having me try different statins drugs. Oops, was causing me to have short term memory loss. I forgot about the DNA chart, yep I cannot handle statins. Thus I need to control my cholesterol via diet.

I had my drug DNA test via my primary doctor. I highly recommend that it be done.
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lealonnie1 Feb 2023
Fascinating, I'd never heard of DNA testing of this kind before. Thanks for enlightening me! 😁
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Well, as far as I know there is no cure for this disease. My step-mother was on Aricept for a few years, didn't seem to do anything for her.

Seroquel, too many side effects for me. My step-sister was on it, made her crazier than she already was.

The only drugs that my step-mother takes is something to calm her for Sundowners events. That is it.

Good Luck!

I personally have no faith in neurologists when it comes to dementia, they have no answers. Everything I've learned comes from watching and absorbing dementia in action.
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Clatour Mar 2023
Would you please share the name of the medication being used to treat sundowners?
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That's really interesting FF. Does insurance cover that kind of testing?
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Yes, my insurance paid for this DNA testing, either Medicare or my secondary insurance, I don't recall which as it was back in 2016.

As for a national database, to me there shouldn't be a reason to have a national database similar to regular DNA testing. All this is, is just finding what meds would work, what meds to use with care, and what meds to avoid. One's medical history is never used for the test.

It would be interesting to know if one's nationality is more prone to not being able to use a certain med. I know my Mom and I had similar issues, so maybe being unable to take certain meds might possibly be inherited.
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pecansielli, the national DNA database for family DNA [genetic genealogy] is a godsend. As Bandy7 had mentioned, it helped solved crimes. Even very old "cold cases" were finally solved such as the Boston Strangler and the Golden State Killer.

Plus, DNA has helped those who were sentenced to prison for a crime they didn't commit to be released, some were behind bars for decades.

My family DNA is in the database, and it doesn't bother me at all. It has been very helpful for when I do family trees. Ancestry has a database for DNA which tells me who I am DNA related to, of course it is only for those more current, since DNA is relatively young.
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Bandy7, I would enjoy reading about certain ethnicity & certain diseases. For my Mom and myself, I was so surprised one day to learn that we both preferred to gets our meds from a certain pharmaceutical manufacturer. So apparently it was something in the pill of other manufacturers that caused side effects for us.

Pills have fillers that are used to make the pill large enough to handle. Pills have binders that help keep the pill in one piece. Pills have coatings that help one swallow the pills. So it could be a number of things, including the main medicine that we couldn't tolerate.

The company used for the medical DNA was Alpha Genomix. I had also used in 2009 either that company or one similar to see what were my chances of getting breast cancer again.

I doubt that medical DNA and family DNA [Ancestry, 23 and Me, etc.] are intertwine. The meds list I got was for all groups of meds, and the lab had no idea what meds I was taking, nor my medical history.
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Please don't give your MIL any drugs against memory problems, Alzheimer's. No drugs will work against that. It'll only: give your MIL side-effects (!), and make the doctors richer. Instead, keep your MIL's brain as active as possible, by giving her fun things to do, and fun things to talk about, socializing; and nice things to look forward to (we all need that). Keep her hearing active, too (bad hearing accelerates Alzheimer's).
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Don't waste your money.Your neurologist is the one to help.
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I’m with user ventingisback.

My loved one became really mean just a few days after starting meds. I stopped the meds and said, “no way”. A visit to the neurologist asked me to try again to slow down memory loss…same results. I printed meds information and it said “doesn’t slow down progression”, so was wondering what was going on, because that’s the reason the neurologist told me LO would take it. PCP also confirmed the meds sometimes don’t help much and put extra work on organs, etc. I told the neurologist, “there’s no cure for this, so I’m sticking with care, not meds”. He ended up telling me to feed blueberries, greens, fish often and to check in him every few months since this as medicare allows. We have caregiver companions at home 6 days a week, keeping my LO feeling happy, busy, and feeling worth something. Doing great. Please note this is my experience, but sometimes those meds turn people worse. Good luck.
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abrown100: Perhaps DNA testing will not help an Alzheimer's patient, although it could help familial members' future health as it relates to dementia.
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I don’t know anything about the DNA testing so I will skip that.

As for drugs, I think Aricept and Memantine can help. They have helped for us. They are the only drugs currently approved for use in Alzheimer’s and dementia. There will be more on the market over time as lots of treatments are going through trials. I would not ignore pharmaceuticals as a potential treatment for these diseases. Others are right in that there is no cure but currently, but it is worth trying because like I said they can help.

Seroquel is more for anxiety and may or may not be needed for your loved one. I would not consider that unless there are other problems which indicate it could help. I might consider an SSRI before that but consult with your doctor.

I think that geriatric psychiatry and neuropsychology are greatly overlooked ways to deal with this disease. It causes a lot of anxiety and depression and having someone available to listen to and reassure your loved one is helpful. It also gives you another ally in dealing with this monster of a disease.
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