Memory Worse

[Anonymous]

Dad is taking memantine and since he started his memory has gotten worse. It’s mainly really short term memory. Right after lunch he won’t remember what he had, but if you ask him about the name of his favorite dog at age 14 he will know.

When he starts the drug three months ago his short term memory was pretty bad, but not so bad that he would forget something within a few minutes of it happening. Now he will ask literally five times where we are going when we are in the car.

Is it possible the drugs are making it worse? I looked online and it said it could create more confusion, but this isn’t confusion. He knows where he is, who everyone is, and what year it is. It’s all remembering short term things. Another example is like my brother was flying in to see him. He asked about 10 times when he was coming in. Each time I’d tell him he would say, “well, I didn’t know that, no one told me.”

I feel bad because he thinks we are making up some of it when we say something about his memory. Like, he wants to drive and we tell him he can’t, he’s physically healthy so he isn’t going to buy that that’s the reason. You throw him a ball and his reaction time is even better than mine. So we were honesty and said the dr said his memory problems makes it dangerous for him and others.

It just seems like it has gotten so much worse since he started the drug. I guess it could be that without the drugs we would have noticed an even worse decline, but the timing seems suspect

[Anonymous]

My mom’s memory declined quickly but she hasn’t been taking any drugs. Short term is insane, it’s like the movie Fifty First Dates but instead of a reset overnight it’s a reset every few minutes. I don’t have any data about the drug your dad is on but can tell you that your description of him is how my mom is, completely unable to recall a conversation from a few minutes before.

[Anonymous]

This is OP with an update. I took my dad to the Dr, he said unlikely the medication was making it worse but it certainly didn’t seem to be making it better. He’s going to increase the dosage.

Yes. It is exactly like that movie 50 First Dates except every few minutes, just as you describe. This evening alone, if I told you how many times I had the same exact conversation about the cat and the new toy I got it, your head would explode. And that conversation takes turns with the “where did those cupcakes go that we bought?” (You mean the ones where you ate the last one about an hour ago?) I kind of wish I could video these incidents to show him at a time when he is a bit clearer, but unlike the movie where they had this happy ending, that’s not going to work here (although the end of that movie always creeped me out 😂)