New member - a bit about my dad and a query about a swallowing problem

[Guest guest]

Hello

My father is 85 and has mixed dementia with some vascular dementia and Dementia

Lewy Bodies. He also has aortic stenosis, an inoperable hernia and some

glaucoma.

He has had brain scans to confirm the diagnosis and has Aricept and various

other drugs to manage his other conditions. the Aricept has transformed his life

in comparison to this time last year. He is more talkative, laughs again, enjoys

company and is able to explain things better, whereas before the ARicept he was

very locked in.

He remains living independently and can manage to dress himself very well, he

has patches of real confusion about times and dates, but these pass. He has had

" people to tea " who clearly are visions, and he knows this and is happy with

them but wishes they would eat their biscuits!They are not a regular feature.

One of the reasons I have joined this group is that dad has a real problem - but

it is sporadic - of having his throat fill with a sort of slimy saliva when he

eats and he has to spit it all out. He is not bringing up food, so is not

vomiting, but he really does have this ghastly time.

he had gastroscopy done which showed no ulcers but that he had a bit of an

issue over his aspirin so he has omeprazole for that, and also that he had a

motility problem with his throat so was given motillium.

However the sporadic slime problem remains. There seems no rhyme or reason -

Does anyone have any experience of this same problem. Dad has a lovely GP who is

really supportive and if anyone has anything to suggest I would love to hear

from you.

We are being referred for speech therapy but the waiting list is long so if

anyone has any ideas of excercises or who can point me towards any useful sites

i would be very grateful.

Thank you very much

Lucy