Alzheimers Disease, Our Mom and Medical Marijuana (Cannabis)

As the years rolled by she started having some issues with forgetfulness and personality changes. Symptoms gradually worsened and we became aware that this was more than just the normal amount of forgetfulness. She was ultimately diagnosed with Alzheimer’s by a skilled Neurologist in about 2014.

She underwent an Amyloid PET/CT scan, which confirmed the presence of amyloid plaque in her brain. This is found in virtually everyone that has Alzheimer’s. A lack of amyloid plaque in the brain essentially rules out Alzheimer’s.

Her memory loss continued to worsen as did the behavioral changes, which now included anxiety, depression, agitation and even hallucinations. She was no longer the hilariously funny and highly social woman I was used to seeing. She eventually got to the point that her eyes were blank and her mouth was open when I would bring weekly dinner out to my parents. She was no longer initiating conversation and her responses to questions were limited. This was quite bothersome to Dad, who was battling ALS with Medical Cannabis.

Mom was also in a lot of pain from extensive spinal disease which necessitated a 6 hour neurosurgical procedure. Postoperatively, she continued to have severe pain, which was being treated with high-dose opioids up to 5 times a day! Despite the high doses, she was always in moderate pain, which was severe at times.

My brother/business partner, Peter, had completed a thorough analysis of Medical Cannabis and was responsible for creating a Tincture that was clearly helping Dad’s ALS. There was also some laboratory studies showing beneficial effects on nerve regeneration as a result of Cannabis treatment so, in late 2014, we decided to start Mom on a protocol of taking Medical Cannabis by mouth on a regular basis.

Mom had never tried marijuana previously, but she tolerated cannabis therapy without complication. Immediately after starting Medical Cannabis the hallucinations and behavioral changes went away and have never returned to this day! Her pain dramatically improved and she was able to taper off opioids within a couple of weeks. She had no withdrawal symptoms!

Peter was going to their house at least 5 days a week to help with care and oversee the parents treatment with cannabis. It took more than a year, but Mom’s memory started improving…and kept improving!!! During our weekly dinner, her eyes were bright and she was happy, smiling and laughing like she used to. She initiated conversations and remain engaged in conversation. I would purposely ask questions to test her short-term memory, which kept improving over time. At times, it was hard to tell that she had any memory issues at all. I was amazed!

In my 36 years of clinical practice, I had never seen anyone with Alzheimers show any sustained improvement in cognitive function. She had to stop cannabis for about 4 months during a complicated hospitalization for diverticulitis. We saw her memory decline again, although not as bad as it was before cannabis.

We resumed treatment with Medical Cannabis when she returned home and her memory started to improve after about a week. One month later, cognitive testing (Montreal Cognitive Assessment, AKA MoCA) by her Occupational Therapist revealed a score of just 1 point below normal. This was 10 points better than her previous testing 4 weeks earlier.

Medical Cannabis has neuroprotective benefits in addition to preventing oxidant-induced cell death. It has also been shown to remove Amyloid plaque and reduce nerve cell death from Excitotoxicty.
https://boorasmd.com/education/excitotoxicity-and-cannabis/

The average life expectancy after an Alzheimers diagnosis is 3-6 years. Alzheimers is ranked as the 6th leading cause of death, but experts feel the diagnosis is under-reported and, after reviewing statistics in greater detail, they think Alzheimers is more likely to rank as the 3rd leading cause of death.

Medications (Aricept, Namemda, etc.) prescribed to treat Alzheimers can sometimes temporarily improve cognitive function but these medications mostly just slow down the rate of memory loss until the underlying disease has caused enough nerve cell death that prescription medications stop working.

Fast forward to late September 2022, 8 years after starting cannabis, and our 90 year-old Mother is still maintaining her memory gains along with further improvement in her short-term memory! I am beyond joyous at seeing Mom’s condition improve with cannabis treatment. Although amazing, I truly can’t say I am surprised by these developments now that we know the science behind how cannabis works for neurodegenerative disorders.

We do, however, feel a profound sense of loss that anyone with Alzheimer’s dementia is not at least trying Medical Cannabis for this condition. I don’t care where someone goes for treatment as long as they are properly educated by the treating physician and are advised correctly as to what type of Medical Cannabis to use. I highly recommend starting treatment as early as possible since the disease process usually starts decades before symptoms are clearly noted.

Anticipate committing to at least a 2 year trial of Medical Cannabis before expecting memory improvement. However, the people we are treating are quickly showing a definite slowing down of the rate they were losing memory before treatment. The behavioral changes are the most challenging for family members. These symptoms appear to improve quite soon with treatment. Mom stopped hallucinating after her first dose!

Personally, we look forward to treating more people with any stage of Alzheimer’s in order to see if others will have a similar response to treatment as we have seen with Mom. (Update: As of mid July 2022 we have seen another woman with much more severe AD than Mom start to speak coherently after several years of being essentially non-communicative!)

https://boorasmd.com/education/alzheimers-disease-and-cannabis-2/

Updated by Charlie Booras, MD on 9/26/2022