Hi, my grandfather has Alzheimer’s disease diagnosed a month ago, when we noticed he didn’t anymore where he left his clouths and started to act like he doesn’t understand consequencies of his action. He has arcept prescribed, how long does it take for medicine to work?
You have misspelt the drug name. It’s aricept, the medicine applied it treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. Donepezil is active ingriedient of Aricept and is responsible for increasing levels of acetylcholine, the missing molecul in brain in Alzheimer’s disease. Actually, Aricept inhibits degradation of acetylcholine. It may take even a couple of weeks to see full effect of medicine, because level of an important brain substance is not in order. And therapy usually starts with lower doses to see how the patient will react to the drug, if it would cause any side effects. The consequences of insufficiency of acetylcholine can be improved but still the dementing process is not altered.