Interesting. Could it just be coincidence that after a few weeks of being on those drugs his cognition increased and he started asking my "why am I in such bad shape? What's happened to me? I am like a stone lying in this bed. I should not be living in this bad shape, etc." As those comments and questions increased in frequency, so did his depression and anger. That's why I started asking the CNPs and his psychiatrist to look into changing meds, eliminating the Ar. & Nam. or whatever it takes to get him more emotionally comfortable. He had gotten pretty comfortable in Dec., 6 weeks before those 2 meds were added.

That could be it, Lynn! He could just be more aware of how bad off he is. My husband's anger and agitation was [and is] an intermittent thing not seemingly conscious but partly physiological, in that his muscles get very tense during this time. He is also very paranoid during his episodes. Once it's over, it's over, until the next one. But he doesn't seem to have any generalized, conscious anger. I remember when he first went on the Exelon patch--even at the lower dosage to start--in 2007 his anger and agitation abated considerably.

I'll ask the Hospice folks about Exelon for my dad. Whatever can help him be less angry and aggitated will be a help. He's on Seroquel and we were wondering if that should be increased or not. He's been on that for a year. Lynn

Aricept and Exelon are both cholinesterase inhibitors so it may not be worth changing over. We were told that Exelon was the only one FDA approved for PDD [his dx at the time it was prescribed]. Not sure how it differs from Aricept.