A woman with dementia was able to temporarily speak for the first time in years after taking a controversial psychedelic. The anonymous Japanese-American woman, who was in her 80s, had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease a decade earlier and lived with family members for support. About five years after her diagnosis, the woman's speech became increasingly stunted as she would only use one-syllable words and refuse to start a conversation. She also suffered from incontinence, mobility issues and problems with executive function, which includes planning, self-control and attention. While dementia, which affects 7 million Americans, worsens over time, doctors in Brazil, where the woman lives, sought to find out if the hallucinogen psilocybin - found in 'magic mushrooms' - could stall her decline. Doctors writing in a medical journal said the woman was given 5g of psilocybin - a large dose sometimes nicknamed a 'heroic dose' - in a supervised session, which triggered profuse sweating and a drop in body temperature before she entered a long sleep-like state. But after about 19 hours, the woman began having conversations on her own, which lasted several hours. Over the next few days, she was also able to control her bladder, dress and walk by herself and hold eye contact and smile at her loved ones. An unidentified woman reportedly regained her speech abilities after taking psilocybin, a compound found in 'magic mushrooms' (stock image) Psilocybin is a naturally occurring psychedelic compound found in over 200 species of mushrooms, also known as 'magic mushrooms'