My 78 year old mum has moderate dementia but has been sort of stable until the last week, in which she started taking simvastatin 40mg but also her husband had to go in hospital for an operation which could be responsible for her deterioration.
Has anyone heared if statins making a demented person symptoms worse?
That being said, I do feel that the trauma of her husband's illness could be responsible for her condition. It's hard to tease apart the two changes since they happened so close together. Check with her doctor and see if she can temporarily go off the stains until she is more stable. This step may or may not help, but it rarely hurts to look to medications when confusion or memory issues arise or worsen.
Please let us know how you are holding up.
Carol
I recently took Mom off statins without consulting her doctors. There is absolutely no evidence that a woman of her age (93) benefits from that junk and plenty of evidence that it contributes to mental impairment. A year ago I started her on CoQ10 (ubiquinol) and fish oil as well as a couple of other natural supplements. I continued her daily low-dose aspirin, but that's it for "drugs." (Sorry, Big Pharma; find yourself another patsy...)
Whether or not the statins cause dementia directly or through diminished cholesterol levels is a matter for scientific study. As we age our cholesterol should be increased, not decreased, because it helps brain function. My mother's gradually progressing dementia can be traced back to when she started statins after a heart attack some 15 years ago. The capper is that she had another heart attack two years ago while on TWO DIFFERENT STATIN DRUGS and in spite of a VERY LOW CHOLESTEROL COUNT!
Do the doctors ever ask themselves "What's terribly wrong with this picture?" Nooo, instead Mom's cardiologist added two more drugs to the cocktail. He had her on Plavix, Coreg, Crestor and Zetia. Even her regular physician was shocked and immediately took her off Zetia, which miffed the cardiologist.
Even if statins did prevent heart attacks, the price is too high. My mother's quality of life is in the toilet, not to mention the sanity of those of us who are dealing with her issues. Frankly, my brothers and I wonder why she goes on living. I could handle it better if she were just a smiling, loopy space cadet, but it's so depressing to see the negativity, the sitting for hours just staring glumly at the wall and the lack of interest in her old activities.
When I informed my brothers about my decision to chuck the statins, they were all on board. I also told them that, in light of our mother's current condition plus the fact that she had a heart attack while on the full prescribed regimen, if she were to die of a heart attack I would feel no guilt whatsoever, and I meant it. She IS 93, after all! I have enough guilt over the coulda-woulda-shoulda of other issues, but I am at peace with how I managed her medications and supplements. Whether or not the brother she is living with for the next several months follows through is another matter, but not for me to uselessly fret over.
You can search the internet for more info, but two web sites to go to are westonaprice.org and blog.grasslandbeef.com. Dr. Mercola's site also has information about diet for optimum health. It is important to point out that the notion that we are living longer than our ancestors, who ate plenty of meat and fats, is patently false. I have done a lot of transposing of data from church and civil records and over the years have noted that it was the infant mortality rate, combined with the occasional deadly epidemic that lowered the average life span. We have improved childhood and maternal survival rates along with sanitation and eliminated most of the diseases that kill in a matter of days, but now are plagued with diseases that take years to kill and in the interim leave the victims disabled and miserable and drugged. Sure, our parents may live into their 80s and 90s after battling crippling disease and mental deterioration for decades. I don't call that "living."
Best of luck to you and your mum!
On the other hand, any sudden changes can send a person with dementia into a tizzy, and the sooner she can see her husband again the better.
Still I would expect your mother to be confused, upset, scared, depressed about her husband right now. That is too big a variable to ignore. Good luck to you both.
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