Does anybody know if a worsening of motor skills would be a side effect when an LBD patient takes Doxycycline?

I hope it is, actually. Mom is fighting a particularly stubborn infection and her doctor put her on Doxycycline this past weekend. This past weekend is also when Mom started having more trouble recognizing me and now, today, she couldn't work her right (dominant) hand. She had a lot of trouble picking up a spoon and when she did get it in her hand (not the right way, but adequate) she couldn't manipulate it to her mouth. This is a new concern. Mom's had trouble with getting her feet to move, but never her hand. She does have tremors in both hands, which she has had for many years.

I've asked that her doctor check this out and I will be calling his NP for more information. Right now, I want to believe that the Doxycycline is at fault because medications can be changed. But if anybody has had experience with this, would you please let me know? Or any experience with the combination of an antibiotic and Lewy?

Thanks.

Kate

A couple of questions: Did they do a culture and sensitivity to determine what antibiotics the pathogen is sensitive to? Could these new symptoms be a result of the infection, itself, rather than the antibiotic? When Derek has an infection [usually a UTI] his motor and cognitive status both take a dive and this is very common in LBD.

You might check out a website such as rxlist.com or drugs.com as far as the side effects. There can be problems with any medication and anyone.

On the other hand, it is very common for many with LBD (and other neurodegenerative disorders) to not be able to pick up eating utensils and not be able to get the utensils to the mouth. Many with LBD, PD, and atypical parkinsonism disorders have to be fed.

Kate,
I think the motor skill issues that your mom is having is more because of the infection , it often seems when theses LBD'ers have these infections it really effects them in this way at least it did in our own case and it often was a heads up for me to something going on such as infection, I do hope it does get resolved but it also could be the new "normal", I had to feed my husband in the latter stages of his illness !
It would be good to check side effects for the medication and that way you have covered all bases!
Good Luck !

Recently my husband seemed to take a precipitous decline. He was incoherent, shivering, had very cold extremities, and responded poorly to my attempts to find out what had happened. I talked to his neurologist who advised me such quick declines were unusual in lbd, and told me to have the condition evaluated by our internist, as it was likely a UTI. When I felt my husband's forehead he was burning up. I ended up having to call paramedics as he couldn't stand well enough to get him in the car. It was both a UTI and pneumonia, took two days in ICU to overcome. The poor man didn't understand that he wasn't feeling well, lewy has robbed him of his ability to recognize a physical illness. It was the infection that caused the decline, the antibiotic then cured the infection. He's better but paid a price. Every such stress on the system eats into his cognition, and he is less aware than he was a month ago.
So my experience with one person has been that antibiotics do not affect his cognition, but, sadly, serious infections and/or stress certainly do.

Coy has been hospitalized for a bleeding ulcer, for pneumonia, and has had pneumonia which we treated at home. Each time he experienced a serious decline. Each time various therapists warned me that once dementia patients decline like this they never get back to previous functioning levels. Each time Coy fully returned to his baseline. Recovery was a slower process than the decline, to be sure, but he did regain his baseline. I think the hospitalization for pneumonia took about 4 months for full recovery.

As I understand it, declines from drug reactions usually clear up when the drug is stopped (with some serious exceptions).
Declines from illness such as UTI, usually clear up when the person fully recovers from the illness.
Declines due to the progression of the disease are permanent.

This just add to the mystery of the disease. Did you know you were signing up to be a detective, too?

Jeanne, it's probably true of most forms of dementia [decline with not return to baseline] but not with Lewy. Derek has been at death's door several times and with no mobility or cognition to speak of but has recovered to baseline every time. He has declined over the years but not due to illness.

I know Pat. Th0se therapists think all dementia is AD. I'm so glad for LBDA's educational mission to the health care professionals. There are still a lot of heathens out there, though!

The first time I believed the therapists. What a downer. The next two times I just shrugged and said, "I'll wait and see before I take steps about more advanced care options." And, of course, they never come back and see him in a few months, so they have no way of knowing that their advice was flat out wrong.