My DH is on the Exelor patch, but was on Aricept. The only effect that I can see is that he seems to be able to talk better and seems a little (very little) more interactive. I am wondering if Exelor actually slows down the progress of the dementia or if it just improves quality of life. From what I have read, I believe the answer is that Exelor and Aricept may improve quality of life, but will not slow down or change the progress of the disease. Is that right?
They do not slow anything down. The patients almost certainly die at the same time they would have died anyway.
All of the dementia drugs should be classified as palliative care. They improve quality of life. They will keep a patient in stage 4, 5 or 6 longer so stage 7 is shorter.
That's the currently-approved drugs, of course. There are some investigational new drugs (INDs) coming down the pike that may actually attack the underlying pathology.
Sunshyne is right, but I know nothing about any of the drugs that are in the pipeline. Because of several issus my husband was never a candidate for any of the studies. Occasionally someone here talks a little about a drug and I'll go and follow a link or two. It is very possible that our LOs are the last generation with no hope. It could be as little as 5 or 10 years.
I think -- I HOPE -- that there is actually hope for my husband, if we are fortunate enough to get into the right clinical trial. The reason I'm bullish on clinical trials is that we can't afford to wait for INDs to go through the lengthy process needed to be approved, so the only way to get access to one in time is to be a guinea pig.
And that is the difference between Alzheimer's (which is a disease) and most kinds of Vascular Dementia, which are event driven damage. Basically, even though the current dementia drugs work, the ones there are trials are almost certainly will never work on Vascular Dementia.