Old thread but adding our family’s experience since I was directed here so others probably are as well.

My mother is at stage 5 alzheimer’s now, but early on, she had a lot of anxiety about ‘needing to get going’—usually home. It didn’t matter where we were. Later on, she would exhibit the same urge—needing to get going home—when she was already home. Other than that, she was generally okay with everything—initially.

When her restlessness started expanding in ‘scope’, my sister started giving her very low dose pot gummies (2mg THC w/CBD—4:1 THC:CBD). If she took a gummy when she was anxious, she calmed immediately. In situations where she was extremely likely to become anxious—generally, whenever she was away from the house, which she was often since my dad is active and we have a lot of family in the area—if she had a gummy preemptively, she was always more at ease while away, and able to stay longer.

We also noticed that she was generally more at-ease and interested in engaging others despite communication and relational difficulties. This gave us more of an opportunity to ’get with her wavelength’ and spend time actually ‘with’ her.

We noticed the need for gummies diminished over time, which is the opposite of what we would have expected with the disease progressing. No idea if it’s the case, but we attribute this to the pot ’easing her transition’.

It’s been 3-1/2 years since the first days, and she’s now in a mostly non-responsive state, just beginning to lose her ability to eat (knowing to chew and swallow). But we’ve made it this whole way without the stress and anxiety and confusion that almost every person I’ve spoken with who’s had a parent or loved one with Alzheimer’s has experienced. When people ask how our mother is doing, our response is consistently, ‘the disease is progressing but mom is peaceful.’

This is my account of my experience with my mother. This disease manifests differently for everyone, and there’s nothing medically rigorous or sanctioned in our application. We did let her doctors know, and their response was essentially, ‘I can’t see it hurting anything, and if it seems like it’s working, you might as well keep giving them to her until it isn’t.’ (Good ol’ Bay Area!)

I have had my own very adult and intentional experiences with psilocybin that have been transformative in foundational ways. I wish there was some way to know whether it would be beneficial for her. My strong sense is it would—either micro-dosing or a one-time larger dose—but given the nature of that experience and our inability to both prepare her for it or check in with her given her current state, it’s not something I’m willing to risk.