ARICEPT Reviews (DONEPEZIL HYDROCHLORIDE)Average Rating: 1.7 (210 Ratings)Filter ResultsCompare ARICEPT with similar:
Type: Rx Drug
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Results are sorted by Gender with females listed first (reviews with no gender reported listed before females). Key to Ratings: 1=LOW (I would not recommend taking this medicine.) |
More on ARICEPT: Reviews Summary | Drug Safety Information
| RATING | REASON | SIDE EFFECTS FOR ARICEPT | COMMENTS | SEX | AGE | DURATION/ DOSAGE | DATE ADDED |
| 1 | dimentia | My 93 year old mother is in a nursing home and was prescribed Aricept because she was having severe memory loss. After only a few days we started to see a change in her. Before the medication she was happy, peaceful and pleasant with everyone. She loved all her caregivers at the home. She has been taking the medication for about 3 weeks and she is very anxious and this has escalated to being beligerent, angry, confused...she insisted the lady in the room with her was a man. Calls my sister and yells at her. Hates all her caregivers and gives them a hard time. Says she wants to die. The doctors say it is not the medication and that she is very depressed. After reading all your comments I am convinced we were right. This medication is making her crazy! | F | 93 | 3 weeks | 4/28/2009 | 1 | Vascular dementia caused by TIA's | I am submitting this for my mother. My mom is 95 and in a nursing home. She suffers from TIA's or Transient Istemic Attacks which have been described to us as mini strokes. Eventually, she has had so many that she has lost many brain cells and suffers from what is called Vascular Dementia. The first time she was given Aricept, we noticed that she could no longer use the walker, and then after about 30 days became manic so they gave her Haldol (sp). We asked them to take her off both of these and she returned to being able to do the walker and even negotiate stairs and the toilet. The doctor put her back on it without our consent or knowledge and she again became weak and got to the point she could not even lift a fork. I went on-line and discovered that Aricept has even caused death in people with vascular dementia. If you or your elderly parent suffer from TIA's DO NOT allow a doctor to prescribe this. | F | 95 | 30 days | 9/8/2008 | 1 | Memory loss | Doctor prescribed 10 mg and take 1/2 pill at dinner time.Wife is a happy person who never had stomach troubles. After first day of medicine she looked angry and depressed.After the second day of medicine,she looked awful and informed me she had nauseas, vomiting and bad problems with stomach functioning. | I had pleaded her doctor for a medicine to help slow down her memory loss. Dr. prescribed Aricept 10 mg pills The result was BAD..BAD BAD This medicine should not be on the market as it is dangerous and harmful. I stopped it, and prefer to deal with wife weak memory, but healthy of spirit and happy. Medicine is very expensive and it really hurt my pocket. I had to throw away 98% of medicine. I don't blame her doctor but the Food and Drug Admin. As a scientific person I believe it should be a process to develop a medicine for memory loss which should be mild with minimum side effects on humans health and well being. | F | 85 | 2 days | 9/20/2008 | 1 | dementia | My mother took this drug and acted out of her mind.Discontinued and tried drug reccomended by nurse,Namenda this is a wonderfull drug for Dementia.It brought my mother back to her old self and no side affects.Ask for starter kit as it starts in low doses and works up to the 10 mg twice a day.She has been taking this six months and she is so glad to have found something that works. | F | 85 | 6 months | 9/2/2008 | 1 | Alzheimer's | Gradual increase in the following: Difficulty walking, unsteadiness, nighttime sleeplessness, vision problems, very limited ability to speak intelligibly, disturbing dreams leading to distress or anger, talking jibberish, hallucinated conversation between self and imagined other--often to self in mirror-- leading to episodes of rage and violent behavior. | I am writing in behalf of my wife. I am her sole caregiver.She has been taking one 5 mg Aricept before bedtime for a minimum of 5 years, perhaps longer. She takes no other prescription drugs but does take DR. Sears' Omega RX fish oil, which I find to be helpful. The listed symptoms did not appear at once but gradually increased over a long period of time. It is difficult to identify SOME, but not all, of these symptoms as being exclusively side effects of Aricept, as distinguished from later stage effects of Alzheimer's itself. However, I have no no doubt about the most troubling ones, especially the episodes of extreme anxiety, anger , and violence that became certain to appear shortly after bedtime and often lasted for many hours. These are definitely the result of her taking the Aricept. Why? Because I saw an immediate reduction in these symptoms within 24 hours, a complete cessation after 2-3 days, and after six days of my discontinuing Aricept, those synmptoms of high anxiety | F | 63 | 5 years | 8/18/2008 | 1 | memory loss | nausea, vomiting, confusion, unstable on feet, can't complete a sentence sensibly, muscle pain, excess saliva, insomnia, | My mother has been taking aricept for 9 days, after about 2 days in she started with vomiting, nausea and she has become completely unable to keep anything down that she has eaten, she honestly looks like death warmed over. We now have taken her off of Aricept and hopefully she will be on the road to recovery. I would not recommend taking this drug at all considering the possible side effectS. Her memory was failing before Aricept, but she was at least alert and able to function normally. With Aricept her memory was even worse and she is completely unable to function or even walk without almost falling. I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND TAKING THIS DRUG OR LETTING A LOVED ONE TAKE THIS DRUG. | F | 75 | 9 days | 8/25/2008 | 1 | Alzheimer's | My mother was diagnosed with Alheimer's soon after a poor recovery from knee replacement surgery. The diagnosis was early stage and mild and immediately put on Aricept. In my opinion, that's when the decline began rapidly. My mother died last August after a two week severe decline. Sleeping most of 24 hrs of a day. Believing that dehydration was making her so sick in the last week, she was taken to the ER. She had developed ulcers of the esophagus and seriously in the stomach. She had never had any ulcer or stomach problems in her life. She developed sepsis and died. I strongly believe that the side effect of ulcers was not monitered closely. Beware. If you are on this drug or if you are family of a patient please, please have side effect checked. | F | | 4/20/2009 | 1 | My mom for early Alzheimers | After 2 doses - she began to become very confused. I took her to the emergency room at the advice of her doctor. My brother and I watched as over a 4 hour period she basically traveled into full blown dimentia - she didn't know my children's names - who she lives with - eventially getting to a point where she didn't know where she lived (with me for 8 months), what year it was, or what size she was ( she said "8", which would have been right 2 years prior, but now she is a size 2) Nothing that was said to me as the medicine was prescibed would ever have indicated this kind of reaction. The emergency room staff ran every test imaginable. There was nothing that could account for the sudden and serious memory loss except the introduction of aricept. 24 hours later - having skipped this morning's dose, I am slowly getting my mother back - this was very frightening and I think it should be listed as a posslible - though perhaps rare - side effect. | F | 78 | 2 days | 4/25/2009 | 1 | Vascular dementia | My mother suffered a series of vivid dreams, hallucinations and confusion after just 3 days at 5mg. | Perhaps the delusions would have lessened with time and some benefit been derived. But the initial experience was so upsetting that her doctor and I agreed to stop this meds immediately and permanently. | F | 85 | 3 days | 5/25/2009 | 1 | my mother for alzheimers | Filling this out for my deceased mother, She died of starvation. | It wasnt until after she died that I found out about this side effect. Aricept lists it as "possible loss of appetite". In actual fact patients starve themselves to death while taking it. I know of two other people this happened to. There is research showing increasing rates of suicide among the elderly, preferred method of suicide according to this research is starving themselves to death. I would like to know how many of these "suicides" were on aricept. It is a very dangerous drug and should not be given to anyone. | F | 89 | 90 days | 5/26/2009 | 1 | Mom took 5 mg aricpet | Nausea, dizzyness, walking off balance, extremely tired,could not eat good substantial meals,then ate next to nothing for a week. Doc kept saying the side effects would go away but did not. Mom just slept and kept asking what is happenning to my memory,am I nuts. She also had horrible nightmares and would not go the the Senior Day Care as she had been doing for 3 days a week for at least 9 months. | My Mom diagnosed with Dementia has been on Namenda for about 2 yrs which has been helpful. Doc decided to add 5 MG of Aricept and after 16 days turned out to be disaster. I planned to have live-in care giver but because of her decline from the aricept we placed her in assisted living for her to recoop. I hope the aricept did not trigger permanent decline. I am soooo sad to see the change. I am praying she at least gets nback to the way she was when she was just on the Namenda. | F | 85 | 16 days | 5/30/2009 | 1 | Alzheimer's Disease | fainting, starvation, bedridden, incontinance, confusion, depression, aggitation, | Diagnosed with Alzheimers, my aunt began Aricept 5mg. After two weeks on this drug she fainted and was eating less. Once admitted to hospital they found her sodium to be low. She was there one week and became completely bedridden, incontinent, extrememly confused, and very depressed. Sent to rehab to get her strength back we realized our neighbor who was taking Aricept 10mg had lost 85 pounds very quickly and was declining in health also. We demanded she be taken off Aricept immediately which for some reason didn't happen for another week or so. By then the damage was done. She lost 15 pounds, refused to eat more than one bite of food at each meal, refused to get out of bed, repeated things over and over, was rude to all who tried to help, became incontinant, had bizarre behavior like peeing in her denture cup or in dixie cups left on her bedside table. She had zero strength. Near death we began to gather family and get things in order. Slowly slowly she began to improve. Learning to walk has been a huge struggle, she is eating great now, seems to be back to her old self other than still depressed alot at night. Most of which is sundowners. I have no doubt this drug is DANGEROUS AND I WOULD NEVER EVER EVER give it to anyone!!!! | F | 90 | 2 weeks | 6/2/2009 | 1 | Dr. prescribed | I have awful nausea and want to sleep all the time. | I am in a research study and have slipped somewhat in recent testing. They referred me to my Dr. and he has prescribed 5 mg. of Aricept. Taking it for 2 weeks and have awful nausea and want to sleep all the time. I live alone and still active and drive. I want to continue with my life as it is. I will discontinue taking Aricept. If my family or myself find adverse problems with me living alone, then we will have to deal with it. I can't stand the nausea. | F | 82 | 2 weeks | 6/16/2009 | 1 | mild dementia | 5 mg Aricept was prescribed for one month, and 93-year-old nursing home resident's decline began, but initially not too dramatically. But when dosage was raised to 10 mg, things went downhill fast. Within three weeks was no longer talking, almost entirely stopped eating, lost weight fast, weak, refusing medicines, couldn't recognize family or say names, fell down (luckily no fractures) was in a wheelchair and recommended for hospice care. After witnessing such a sudden death spiral and the only difference in medications being Aricept, family asked doctor to stop Aricept entirely. 10 mg Aricept was stopped after 22 days use (dosage was cut back to 5 mg for four days additional days before complete elimination). Within a week of being off Aricept, thankfully, patient has begun recuperating appetitie, recognizing family members again, asking questions, talking and regaining strength and personality. | Instead of making things better, Aricept made condition much worse and was part and parcel of scary death spiral which hopefully is being reversed in time. Be vary wary of this drug, to say the least. Do not recommend. Stay away from it, if at all possible. | F | 93 | 45 days | 6/19/2009 | 1 | Short Term memory imparement | No problem with the 5mg sample but my first prescription was for 10mg. I suffered extreme stomach burning which felt somewhat like "acid stomach" but much more painful. I stopped after taking 2 pills. | F | 79 | 32 days | 7/7/2009 | 1 | Dementia | My mother has Dementia and the side effects were scary. I asked the her doctor what would be good for her loss of memory and how she was acting up. Doctor gave Aricept and after three days I saw she was acting worse. She was going around in circles with her wheelchair and complaining more about everything. Nighttime was the worst. I was unhappy with this drug and I took her off. On the day she did not receive the dose, she is clear headed and can talk, walk and more like herself. I threw them in the trash. She won't be taking it again ever. | I heard this medication would help the effects of Dementia. On TV, it is advertised as something great. They show that the patient regains their momentum in life again. These drugs are a lie and the poor old people are guinea pigs for the doctors. It is all about profit for Pharmaceutical companies and government. Beware and protect your elderly parents or relatives. | F | 82 | 3 days | 10/10/2009 | 1 | BY AGE WITHOUT A REASON | Difficulty breathing, moving and talking, tightness in the chest, confusion, unusual tiredness and sluggishness, irregular heartbeat, muscle weakness, lost of appetite and weight, swelling of the hands. | My mother was recovering from a hip surgery at Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Brooklyn, NY. Her observing doctor at the center had prescribed this drug without any reason or concern. My mother has never suffered from Dementia or any stage of Alzheimer disease. We were completely unaware of the fact she was taking Aricept until all physical and mental changes had appeared and I had researched it on-line. This drug is VERY DANGEROUS and families should be advised on all possible issues. It is 1 week now she is off the medication but we still can't see the improvement in her. | F | 91 | 4 weeks | 10/13/2009 | 1 | my father did; 88 years old | He was prescribed aricept to manage Alzeimer's. He died by gasping for air (he could not breath; he died in my hands taking a breath every 10 seconds until he stopped breathing). | My father was not in great shape but we had no reason to expect him to die. When he started taking aricept, he also started sleeping more. After one week we rushed him to the hospital because he could not breath. There he recovered soon (now I imagine because Aricept was stopped). We brought him back and he started aricept again following the doctor's orders. He died after a week. My father always had low blood pressure, and I would imagine bradycardia as well. I am afraid that aricept stopped his heart from beating (possibly by increasing the levels of acetylcholine). If only I had checked earlier the side effects of this drug on the internet. | F | 88 | 2 weeks | 10/15/2009 | 1 | Short Term Memory Loss | Delusional dreams, anxiety, tiredness | Took a low dosage for only four days | F | 88 | 4 days | 10/23/2009 | 1 | memory loss (old age) | Delusions,Confusion,Fatigue,Panic Attacks | My mother started to image shadows of a male head w/ eyeglasses watching her and hearing "clicks" as if someone was photographing her. Needless to say what she is seeing are floaters and flashing lights; an effect to the YAG laser eye surgery she had about the same time she starting taking the Aricept. This is an alarming "head trip" drug. This is her 1st day off Aricept. Does anyone have any experience with the delusions stopping after the discontinuation of Aricept? | F | 73 | 18 days | 10/26/2009 |