My husband was diagnosed with Alz in 2002 and he is taking Aricept/Namenda twice a day. At the current time, he is not capable of dispensing his own meds, so I give them to him in the morning and at night as prescribed by doctor. For the past month or so, it has been a real problem getting him to take his meds. He gets very angry and either refuses to take them or throws the meds across the room. I can't hide meds in his food as he has a real bad habit of feeding the dogs while he eats and I've had to stop making chocolate cakes or cooking anything that the dogs can't eat. If I were to crush them and put them in liquid, I can't be sure he will drink all the liquid. Anybody have any creative suggestions on how to get him to take his meds without the royal battles we are now having?
Hi Pam & Welcome,I am sorry for your need to join our family, however, I am glad you found us. At the moment, my husband still takes his medication so I really cannot offer any advice on that subject with first hand knowledge. I know Marsh another board member, has mentioned that he crushes the pills & adds them to applesauce. I am sure some others will have some good advice.
Pam--I think it would help us to be creative if you posted more about your husband. Does he know/accept his diagnosis? Is he generally in a good mood or not? Are these the only meds he's taking? My husband is usually good about taking his, but occasionally he will question whether he really needs to take so many. I tell him they are making his memory better. Then he asks how I can tell. I answer that he doesn't ask as many repetitive questions as he used to (FIB). It's the same conversation each time, but he is satisfied.
This is not creative, and it may not be helpful either, but there comes a point when you stop giving meds, and it is possible it is the point when you can't get them to take them.
Talk to his doctor about the situation and explain that he is fighting you on taking the meds and you can't figure out a way to safely grind them up and give them to him in food. S/he might have options for you, or maybe just advice on what to do next.
Welcome to my website. You have come to a place of comfort for spouses who are trying to cope with the Alzheimer's/dementia of their husband/wife. The issues we face in dealing with a spouse with this disease are so different from the issues faced by children and grandchildren caregivers. We discuss all of those issues here - loss of intimacy; social contact; conversation; anger; resentment; stress; and pain of living with the stranger that Alzheimer's Disease has put in place of our beloved spouse.
The message boards are only part of this website. Please be sure to log onto the home page - www.thealzheimerspouse.com - and read all of the resources on the left side. I recommend starting with "Newly Diagnosed/New Member" and "Understanding the Dementia Experience". There are 4 sections for EOAD members - two of which focus on the young teens whose parents have EOAD (early onset AD). The newest is "Early Onset Dementia - A Practical Guide, which is excellent. There is a great new section on informative videos. Do not miss the "previous blog" section. It is there you will find a huge array of topics with which you can relate. Log onto the home page daily for new blogs; news updates; important information.
As for your question about taking meds - I have a friend who is going through this with her husband, and there is no easy answer when they are aware enough to know that they are taking meds. You could try having the doctor or social worker talk to him about the meds. No one has ever mentioned the dog problem before, but that certainly is a consideration.
Marilyn is correct - can you give us a little more information about your husband? Does he take other meds (high blood pressure, cholesteral, etc.), and does he take those willingly? Is it just the AD meds. he is refusing?
can you have him eat his breakfast or lunch/etc and lock the dogs away while he eats? that is easy enough/or outside? i used to hide a pill stuffed inside of a milky way bar. i cut in in 3's and stuff a pill way inside each part-have yet to see my DH refuse any candy or chocolate. many here say their spouse loves candy too. there are a miriad of ways to hide meds if you know what foods they will want. i use applesauce with a packet of splenda even now when DH will eat anything:) some pills can be crushed and added to icecream or liquid jello or pudding. others cant be crushed due to time release so if in doubt ask the pharmacy. i crushed dh prostate med and it gave him a super drop in blood pressure so now i have to give at various times/x day instead due to time release. i would get him used to not having the dogs around at mealtime first for a day or so and then proceed. things have to change with trying to deal with AD, always evolving. good luck, divvi
In Richard Taylor's book he talks about not why he forgets or refuses to take his meds. The question he asks: Do I do to just rebell against you? Do I want to stop taking them and let this disease go? Do I really forget? The answer he gave was he is not sure but probably all. He did say he mostly takes them to make his wife and family happy - at least that is how I understood it.
Welcome, Pam! I'm glad you've found this great place. My DH was pretty good about taking his meds: I would put them in a dish with a glass of water beside his plate at breakfast and at suppertime. Lately he has been a bit rebellious, especially in the evening. There are quite a few pills, and he insists he has no medical issues at all, so why should he take pills? (He has forgotten that he is diabetic and has high blood pressure and has never admitted the AD). BRIBERY works pretty good for me. I get him to take the morning meds by simply not leaving the house with him until he's taken them (he's the one who wants to go out cycling), and in the evening I tell him I'll bring him some dessert after he takes his pills. Two more points: - In the evening It has been working better to give him the meds AFTER the meal, when he is feeling full and comfortable. - Often if he won't take the pills right now, don't make an issue of it but just try again after a little while. This was a hint given on the thread: CAREGIVER TIPS-Things I wish someone had told me back in Stage 2-3 (I'll bring it to the top for you),
My DH occasionally refuses to take his nighttime meds, telling me he just took them (that was last night). or he hides them when I'm not looking and then tells me he took them. I can't tell you how many pills I've found in the back of his night table when I'm vacuumming. I've decided, if he refuses to take the nighttime pills, I won't make an issue, I just say OK, Leave them there for tomorrow night. A t this point I really don't think any harm can come of it. He takes a lipitor, and an Exelon at night, plus I give him a Tylonol PM. It's not the end of the world if he takes them or doesn't take them, and you really have to pick your battles. Let me add, however, that my DH is 86 yrs old & we've been dealing with AZ for 7 or 8 or 9 yrs now. So, after so long, I guess I've just decided that no Lipitor for one night will not raise his Cholesterol, and skipping one Exelon won't hurry him getting worse. If your husband is young, or hasn't had the disease for long you might not be willing to take this laissez faire attitude of mine.
Hello, welcome to the group. It has been a problem for me to get hubby to take his meds for some time. I have the best luck hiding them in icecream. Get a flavored icecream like peach or strawberry that have little bits of fruit in it and that will help hide the meds. Also fruit flavored yogurt works pretty well too. If the meds can be crushed it will be easier to hide them. My DH's can all be crushed except for two capsuls, them I just take apart and pour the insides out into the icecream or whatever I'm using. I hope this helps you. Gail
Pam, welcome to the group. As Kadee said, I grind my wife's pills in applesauce and get her to eat that. It is getting harder since she just stirs the applesauce, without eating any. Sometimes I have to feed it to her, but if I do that at least she takes it. The main pills she needs are the Metformin and Glipizide for her diabetes, and Hyzaar for high blood pressure. For the AD she has the Exelon patch in the morning and one 10mg Namenda in the evening. Of all these, the only one I can't grind is the Glipizide. This I can usually talk her into taking with her coffee. Since she is now in stage 6, if she starts refusing the meds I will probably just discontinue them rather than constantly fight with her. Stopping the diabetes meds will only have a serious effect over the long run - years. And since she doesn't have years I would have no problem stopping them. Stopping the blood pressure med might bring on a stroke, but might not have any serious effect. Chris R mentioned missing her husbands Lipitor occasionally. My wife was on a related drug - Zocor - but her doctor agreed to stop this since her cholesterol is not that high and any bad effects will only be long term. This is rather long-winded, but I hope it gives you some ideas.
Marsh, your thoughts on stopping the medicine are very interesting. I'm wondering though if stopping the diabetes medicine would make the Alzheimer's progress more rapidly. I think Sunshyne wrote something about that on the coconut oil thread. DH was on a hideous rant this morning, so I resorted to crunching medicine and putting it in yogurt for the first time. I only did it with the Risperidone, and it worked, he's very calm and pleasant now. Watching a rerun of Federer beating somebody. This was only his second tablet. He has many of the same meds your DH has, Metformin (that would be a huge one to crush), Hyzaar for blood pressure and Simvastatine for cholesterol. I think he is rebelling against the fact that there are so many pills to take, and he has always been against pills. I am thinking of cutting out the daily vitamin, which is a huge thing.
I stopped the vitamins long ago. first I tried chewables, and that didn't really work, he didn't understand to chew them, and couldn't swallow them. when he starts raging, I do give him the seroquel mixed in pudding. I have half a pill already crushed and ready. Amazingly, it works very quickly, actually it puts him to sleep, and I really need to get something different for him, but, to tell the truth, sleeping is better than yelling and punching walls and tables and heaven knows what's next. you can only do your best.
jeanetteB, I'm not sure what stopping the diabetes meds will do to the AD. That's one reason I haven't stopped them yet. Some researchers have considered AD to be type 3 diabetes since there is a problem with glucose uptake by the brain. That's the rationale behind the use of coconut oil, MCT oil, or Axona. You're right, crushing the Metformin is a job. And she is on 2 tablets twice a day!!!! I'm also considering stopping her multivitamins and calcium.
Food is the best way to hide their meds. I agree with Divvi, I would put the dogs somewhere safe while he eats. At the NH they grind Lynn's pills and put it in a tiny bit of applesauce or pudding. It is just a spoonful and is much easier to get him to agree to one mouthful than a whole bowl.
Trisinger made jello in ice cube trays and put his wifes meds right in them. I thought that was a great idea. Best of luck
My DW is 73 and in >#7. She gives me a lot of trouble most of the time about taking her pills (5 - 7) . I think it very similer to the trouble I have with her taiking her morninb bath. She feels that I am somehow crossing into her felling of independence. She gets real angry at me and calls me a devil, etc. I try to stay calm and continue to offer her the pills calmly and tell her that the Dr says they will make her feel better. They are good for you. And very often I will schedule my pill taking at the same time. If she sees me take mine it sometimes helps. I also give her vit and calcium as chewables and because of their candy tast she usully takes them. But---I am going to ask DR at next appointment if I can eliminate some of them. I dred the symptoms that come with staged #7 and hope some of this may calm by then. My advice is to stay calm and try your best to be patient but also persistan.
Update on the pill situation, most of which was posted on the September checkin. Last week, Dh all of a sudden refused to take his pills. I had no equipment in the house for crushing pills so it was pretty messy at first. I found after a suggestion here that a rolling pin works fine for crushing almost everything, but the cheap little plastic pill crusher that I found in our pharmacy is handier, and seems to do the job on most of the pills. I did some experimenting with putting the medicine in food, sometimes successful, sometimes not. I apparently put too many in some applesauce, he said it tasted horrible (I'm sure it did) and wouldn't finish it. So I had to be more careful. His morning yogurt works well, also ice cream, jello with fruit, and pudding. But some of the stuff (Metformine) tastes so awful that I didn't dare put it in anything. Last night I decided to try to get him to take his pills right after supper, just putting them on his placemat with a glass of water after everything else had been cleared away -- and he did. Also both times today. SO maybe this particular crisis is over. I decided he was rebelling against so many pills (he had diabetes, high blood pressure, cholesterol plus the Exelon and Risperidone and some supplements). So to keep it down I will continue putting the Glucosamine (which he really needs for his hip; an operation would be horrible) in his coconut oil fudge. I add grated coconut and plenty of nuts to camoflage any crunchiness. I'll continue to put the Risperidone in his morning yogurt since once he's had that, he seems to be more cooperative about taking the other pills. And I've simply dropped the vitamins and Omega-3. It was just too much.
I've wondered about the taste of all the pills in applesauce - metformin, glipizide, Hyzaar, Vit. D, Calcium with D, and multivitamins. I don't want to taste-test it myself, since I don't need any of those meds. I asked DW once how it tasted and she said it was good. But then she says that about whatever I give her to eat, so maybe she has lost her sense of taste (which was never that good to begin with). She eats the applesauce/meds without any complaint once I can get her to stop playing with it.
jeanette some of my DH antibiotics taste and smell horrendous out of the capsule. i add some real honey or a packet or two of sugar to camofloge the taste. he gobbles it up i think the taste factor is amiss some anyway. can you try diet liquid jello/ very sweet. divvi good for you being creative. :)
Jim's nursing home puts crushed meds in applesauce, yougurt and ice cream! The Banana Split Social that they had was a big hit with my man who could LIVE happpily on ice cream alone, lol.
Divvi, thanks the diet jello did work pretty good; I put a lot of pills and a lot of fruit in that and he gobbled it up. (I first gave him a little dish of it and put the rest in the fridge right in front where I knew he would find it and he did, ate it up within the hour very stealthily and cleaned the bowl, so I wouldn't notice. LOL)
My supply is running low but I'll be able to stock up in Ohio in October. They don't sell it here but it's very lightweight in the suitcase, so it's one of my favorite imports. Got to do my bit to keep the US economy going <grin>.
Thank you all so very much for all your help. Bill is only taking 2 Aricept and 2 Namenda and 1 baby aspirin per day. He gets 2 Aricept and 1 Namenda in the morning and 1 Namenda at night. I can get him to take the Namenda at night by sticking it in a miniature Snicker's Bar, he just thinks it's another peanut and crunches away. However, it's the Aricept and Namenda in the morning he's having problems with, as I have read Aricept cannot be crushed and should be taken whole. He's really into sweets, so I think I'll try the ice cream. He likes the peach Bluebell I'm still at the stage where I'm trying to feed him healthy, but he does like his sweets.
I would just use sweets to maximum advantage then. Frankly, we're not trying to keep these guys to the diet-of-perfection you might impose on someone you were expecting to live another 30 healthy years. You can make up for it with veggies or something.
It is a funny, regressive trait. I can hardly get out the check-out of a store with my husband that he hasn't grabbed M&Ms, spice drops, or doritos off the rack. Not how he used to be.
Within the past few days my DH has stopped taking his evening pills. I would put them into his mouth and give him water to wash them down. He'd drink all the water but the pills would still be in his mouth, trying to dissolve. He still does okay with his morning pills. I've started using my little mortar and pestle to crush the evening ones and put them into his applesauce. I feed him the applesauce and he thinks he is getting a real treat. Since he has very little sense of taste I can get away with that. One of his pills is Extremely Bitter, but one would never know, watching him eat the applesauce.
My DH still takes his meds fine except his way is to cup them all in his hand and "throw" them into his mouth. Sometimes some don't make it. I have been giving them to him for a while now in a spoon. No spills. Followed by a covered cup with a straw to wash them down.
Pills in the floor can be dangerous for a pet. When my daughter brings her small dog with her to visit the dog cruises around the room constantly looking for "anything" to eat. She doesn't get "people food" at home and she will eat anything she things "people" have been eating. DH takes them willingly now in a spoon because he doesn't want the little dog to eat one accidently.