Expert: Paula Damgaard - 3/6/2008

Question
My husband was diagnosed 3 1/2 years ago at 55 years old. He has declined rapidly over the past 6 months. He is currently in early stage 6. Drs. tell me he needs a colonoscopy. Even a small amount of anesthesia concerns me. I have read that this can make more permanent confusion.  A cat scan show diverticula. His belly hurts a lot so the colonoscopy has been ordered. He also has Dysphagia and Sleep Apnea.

Answer
Sandra, you are right to some degree, anesthesia isn't a very good thing for AD patients.  What is does is it makes their cognition worse and they are apt to be very disorientated afterwards.  They do come back around to their baseline, but it takes them longer to recover than a normal person.  

But it doesn't seem like you have much choice unless they give him a spinal anesthesia like they do for pregnant women.  Not sure if they do that but it is worth a question to his doctor.  You need to find out the cause of his pain.  You don't want him miserable everyday.

Then the question comes, what if the colonscopy finds something like cancer?  What will you do then?  Will you treat it or just give him comfort care?  If he is currently in stage 6, to me it would be better to just do comfort care, because you want to give him the best quality of life now rather than quantity.  Hard questions, but you need to think about them because they will probably come up.  

I hope this helps you.  Please feel free to write again.  Good luck Paula