I hope some of you can help me explain the Memory loss of HD in some sort of understandable way to my questioning PHD.
My husband has had the 1st of psych testing which showed mild to moderate "dimentia" and the Dr.'s are discussing putting him on Aricept. Well, he saw the recent Aricept commercial on TV with the person that has Alzheimers on it.
He's seen people with Alzheimers and how they can forget family members, where they are, what year it is, etc. etc.
I told him from what I've read about HD and on the forum that people with HD that I have read about don't seem to lose the memory the same way or as severe. I've read that Phd's in even late stages know who family is and where they are.
Is this correct? How is it different when it's all "dimentia"? Is the brain loss in different area's with the diseases and how do I explain it to him. He is concerned about it and I led him to believe it's different and I told him I would ask to see if the folks on the forum could explain it so he could understand better and not be as concerned about it being like a total memory loss.
Thank you. LizzieAnn

Lizzie Ann, tell your husband that Alzheimer's is a cortical dementia and Huntington's Disease is a subcortical dementia. The memory impairment is not as severe. He won't forget who he is and who you are but he will have more problems getting information from short term memory into long term memory.

You might want to try memantine instead of Aricept. Memantine is approved for cognitive impairment in Alzheimer's and is now in clinical trials for HD patients as a result of good clinical reports.

THANK YOU MARSHA!

i was worried about that too...

Yeah it's not anything like Alzheimer's. I have been with a bunch of people with HD. It's the little things that people who have HD have trouble with... whether they took their medications or that they have something on the stove. Sometimes learning a new name can be hard. Mementine helps with that kind of stuff tho and makes things a lot easier to keep track of. He will always know people places and things though. That was a good question. I bet a lot of people just learning have that idea that Alzheimer memory and HD memory problems are the same.

This morning when I was getting into my year old bathing suit which I have put on many times, I completely forgot how. It s the type of suit which has a strap across the back and you have to hold all of the suit togteher as you put on, then put the straps up one at a time. I spent quite a hile standing in the top half with the bottom out wrong, and then I got into the bottom but the top just folded over. Worse case scenario is to just go the pool where I have dressing help now .
Dusty