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Had Mom to Neurologist today...

19 years ago

To back things up a bit, this is her follow-up appt with her neurologist, who had prescribed a med for her episodes of shaking (like Parkinson's) and sometimes passing out for a brief time. The meds completely stopped those, and had no bad side-effects, so they were re-prescribed (Epival, 250mg).

For her evening/night restlessness and hallucinations (seeing people in her room, outside, getting up several times throughout the night for the oddest reasons) she prescribed Risperidone 0.5mg to start. It's the lowest dose, and she may up it in 3 weeks when I call her back.

Things have changed, however....when the doc gave her 3 words to remember for a minute or two 3 months ago, it was no problem for Mom to repeat them back to her. This time, she could only remember one word. She also couldn't tell her what country we live in. She said America (I suspect too much CNN for her! ;-) Mom did tell her about her plane trip last night, how they ran out of gas, people were scared, etc...Things that appear on tv seem to be personalized for her. Like the other night when she whispered to me to "Ask those Swiss Chalet people to leave her room..." I suspect she had just seen a SC commercial.

Anyway....she's not going to put her through an MRI for now, we'll try to control things with the mildest of meds...at 91 she's so frail, and it's so difficult on her to take her anywhere. I feel so sorry for her; she's so confused and trusting of what we're doing for her.

So. We'll pick the meds up tomorrow and see if she settles down better at night, and does't get up...hopefully we can all get a better night's sleep!

Blessing to you all...

Linda

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Comments (3)

derryw
19 years ago
Hope it helps, Linda. I would watch her closely. It will either help, or make matters worse.
It is hard to see them so helpless. I guess they trust us like we trusted them as children. Feels like a lot of responsibility, doesn't it. Derry
Patti541
19 years ago
My uncle has hallucinations too. I went into his room the other morning and he was sitting on the edge of the bed with a dollar clutched in his hand. He then asked me, "How do I get off this bus? I've been trying to get off this bus for a long time, but I don't think I have enough money." I tried to distract him and gently told him that he was not on the bus, but in his room. He said "Well, I guess I can go back to bed then, huh?" He promptly went back to bed and fell asleep.
It breaks my heart, because I can't fathom how confused and frightened he must have been. I'm sure you feel that way about your Mom too, and it's also scary for us.
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Glitter53
Original Author
19 years ago
Thank you...yes, it must be very frightening to them. Sometimes she's afraid to go into her room until I turn a light on. Last night I gave her the 0.5mg of Resperidone and she had absolutely no such episodes and had a nice deep sleep! She was drowsy in the morning, so on the suggestion of our doc, cut the tab in half for tonight.
He said that these episodes can lead to more Alzeimer-like conditions and that we should consider putting her name in for a nursing home. I never thought it would come to that. ;-(

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