Elderly and sleeping pills

[TimetoHeal]

Hi, all!  I haven't been here in a while.  Trying to get caught up on everyone. It looks like several of us are having a hard time lately. 

I was just wondering what are your thoughts/experiences with your PD parents taking sleeping pills and do you think it exacerbates their PD and maybe causes other problems like dementia?  I have never thought about this before, but just yesterday, I had a conversation with a co-worker who's mother was on Ambien for many, many years, and it caused dementia and addiction behavior in her.  This person is a healthcare professional, and she said it is well known that Ambien causes dementia, especially in the elderly, and should never be prescribed long-term.  She had a horrible time getting her mother off of it, but when she did, she improved (not completely, still has dementia, but she is in her 90's). She didn't say anything about her mother having a PD, and I didn't bring mine up, because we are not that kind of close, and I don't share it with everyone.  But, I realized my mother has been on Ambien nightly for over a decade.  She definitely shows signs of addiction and sometimes, I think the beginnings of dementia, and she has been in a downward spiral the last several years.  It's really hard to know how much is her PD (some things obviously predate the medication), and how much may be the medicine. I'm not sure how much it matters, because my mother would sooner kill herself than give up her pills, and she has conned her doctor into thinking she is just fine, and he continues to prescribe them. 

Any thoughts?

[Poison Ivy]

Many medications can affect brain functioning, especially in older adults. I just did a search on the internet and found an article titled, "Do Sleep Medications Increase Your Chances of Dementia?" The deck says, "UCSF-Led Study Shows Benzos, Antidepressants, Ambien May Impact Cognition."

[TimetoHeal]

Thank you, Poison Ivy! 

[treesgrowslowly]

Hi TimetoHeal,

I don't know anything about Ambien. But what I have thought about is how hard it is to discern PD traits from aging and from mood issues that can be tied to pain.

Chronic pain plays a role in our behavior and mood and coping skills right? The people I know who have PDs, are always in victim mode. Being in victim mode makes it harder for them to take responsibility for their health care needs, and to pro-actively address their pain issues. I've known some PD's who simply drink more to manage their pain. Not a great solution to pain management.

People with PD's are typically rigid, and so cognitive rigidity is not a great trait to have as we age, since aging involves so much change and then people who are cognitively stubborn / rigid, don't have as much ability to cope with the changes going on in their lives / bodies, so on.

I think that there's considerable lived experience on this board that aging often exacerbates the PD behaviour in a lot of people in our lives. I think about the aging process, and how rigidity means an inability to cope - with the aging process.

Dr. Ramani talks about the effect of aging on narcissism sometimes in her videos. That as a person with a narcissistic personality style ages, they have fewer resources i.e. energy, charm, good looks, social status, etc.. which is what they used when they were younger, to get by. Seems like aging can make their PD seem worse.

So while I can't speak to your question about Ambien and dementia, you raise a good question about dementia vs. normal cognitive decline, vs. PD stuff and how can we know which behavior is due to which trait? It's not easy.

Trees

[TimetoHeal]

Thank you, Trees!

You're so right.  My mom is having such a hard time getting older.  In her youth, she used her looks and charm to seem "normal", even above average, and get what she wanted in life.  Now, all she has is the pity and helplessness card to play. Which from my reading is what being the "waif" is.  She went from full-blown Queen to now Waif.

I think you're right about it being so hard to tell the difference between age-related decline, dementia, and PD stuff.  I think the conversation I had with my co-worker was probably just a coincidence.  And me hoping, once again, if I could just find the one thing that would "fix her" I would have a normal mom.   

[feenix]

This is an old topic but I wanted to add my input from my own experience. In case this is relevant to anyone else's situation.
My mother has a dementia diagnosis. Her cognitive symptoms have been getting progressively worse over the last 15 years. She has also been taking cholesterol lowering medication for a similar amount of time. The doctor who diagnosed her dementia about 2 years ago said there's no conclusive evidence that these medications cause dementia or cognitive impairment. My mother lost her driving license at that point. Her cognitive function continued to decline, quite rapidly at that point until she spent a lot of time wandering around the house mumbling to herself about having things to do but not being able to remember. She was also very anxious and unable to sit and have a conversation.
Long story short, I worked with her GP to get her off all the cholesterol lowering medication and 5 months later she has improved. The wandering and mumbling has stopped, she is able to relax and sit still and have a conversation. I'm wondering now if she really has dementia, or just the normal memory decline of a 94 year old.
If there are cholesterol lowering medications combined with cognitive decline, you might want to weigh the benefits versus risks, especially at a very advanced age when quality of life might be more important.
Of course, psychiatric medications are going to have an impact too, and the negative effects are going to be cumulative.

[TimetoHeal]

feenix,

I appreciate your addition to this topic so much!  I believe we don't even know the tip of the iceberg regarding all the side effects of different medications, and then you add multiple medications, which many elderly people are on, and you get polypharmacy.  It's really sobering.

My father was on cholesterol lowering medications for years, maybe decades even. He died of a rare brain disease called Cruetzfeld-Jacob Disease (I'm probably spelling it wrong).  It's a prion disease that looks a lot like Alzheimer's but it happens really, really fast.  He was only 60 years old. A very traumatic thing for all of us.  I will always wonder if the medication had something to do with it.