My life partner took lowest dose of donezepil for more than a year and definitely declined when it was necessary to change to another med. I think everyone reacts differently to meds. I hope our story is helpful to others.

In rare instances aricept/donezepil adversely affects heart function. My partner was born with a heart murmur and had bovine aortic valve replacement surgery about 10 years ago. A small stroke, “infarct”, during heart surgery is now described as “chronic infarct of the deep right frontal white matter with generalized parenchymal volume loss”. That was the beginning of our slow painful journey.

Donezepil was abruptly discontinued by doctors when partner developed very slow heart beat. A pacemaker was implanted for heart beat issue. Abruptly stopping donezepil was terrible for us. We went through several meds that did not help before landing on memantine. We have since added seroquel, due to anxiety and aggressive behavior.

He was doing much better before stopping donezepil. We will never really know whether further decline is just the continuing course of the disease or related to stopping donezepil. We all just do the best we can with the cards we are dealt.🥲😢