Zsolt and cognitive problems

[Guest guest]

Dear Zsolt,

Sorry to be a little late in responding to your email. My husband Tom, 46, has cognitive problems which have been confirmed by his doctors in the last year or so. I've seen it happening now for several years. He has trouble making decisions, forgets some things we have recently told him and is generally pretty slow to " pick up " on things. This is so different from how he was not so long ago. I wrote to the PLS-FRIENDS group a couple of months ago about this same question, so I want you to know that yes, a few do seem to have this aspect. But I do not think that it becomes full-blown dementia. They know that some ALS patients have some mild dementia. " They " are looking into whether some PLS patients may expereince this, too.

You may not be taking any anti-depressants at all, but I wanted to mention that I also have found out that some cognitive problems can be caused by taking an antidepressant for say, more than a year or so. Some people experience some word-finding dificulties and some do not. Zoloft and Prozac and probably some other antidepressants are some that, while very, very helpful, can cause these mild cognitive problems and sometimes twitches and tics that can be dificult to get rid of. I have been meaning to share this info with the group. A solution sometimes is to begin to gradually " wean " yourself off of the antidepressant (with your doctor's approval, of course) by using a pill slicer to shave off a little bit of the dosage so that you are decreasing the dose by 10mg. Do this for a couple of weeks before shaving off any more. Now for the disclaimers, I am not a doctor nor nurse. Read the pamphlet that comes with the medicine and ask your doctor if he or she has ever heard of cognitive side-affects from your medicine. You may be surprised what you hear. Now, there is no country as great as the US, I believe, but as patriotic and loyal as I am, I must say that the drug companies in America sure have sold a lot of these anti-depressants in the last 20 years. I think we'll know a lot more about them in another 10 years or so from what I read.

Take care,

(and Tom)