Friday, November 21, 2008

Current Diagnosis - FTD

The most recent diagnosis made is FTD ( aka fronto-temporal lobe dementia).
The details of this disease appear to explain Patient's symptoms over the past years. A key determining factor involves the age range of people with this disease. Patient's age falls into the category, which is why Patient cannot be diagnosed with the more common/general type of dementia (which strikes those of an older age group).
The drugs prescribed when beginning symptoms unfolded, are commonly prescribed for people diagnosed with this illness.

The disease has reached an advanced stage which involves weight loss, difficulty walking, carrying on conversation, and poor memory and cognitive abilities, excessive saliva perhaps due to poor swallowing function.
We are still open to forms of treatment for possible improvement of functioning ability.
It is not clear what caused this illness, however there is some speculation that it was a result of inflammation that was not caught/diagnosed sooner.
Patient's mother had some form of dementia.

Patient is no longer taking Lamictal, Zyprexa or any of the drugs in this category because the side effects were overwhelming difficult to deal with. Doctors informed us that this could potentially happen.
Patient recently started using Exelon, a small patch daily for memory.