Introduction

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone - I have posted a few questions in the forum but have not formally

introduced myself or my mom. Mom was diagnosed at Mayo Clinic in MN in October

with LBD. I had taken her there because she had declined rapidly in a couple of

months - she went from being able to live by herself in her own home to no

longer being able to care for herself.

I moved her into assisted living in her home town in the Upper Peninsula of MI

in early Dec - I had been there taking care of her since October until a place

opened up. She didn't like it there but was doing fine - socializing, eating,

doing PT and OT - she had 1 hour of care a day which was for the shower and

getting dressed in the am.

Late Jan she started to become paranoid - she could hear my voice in the hallway

at the assisted living place - and I was always with a " bad man " . This got

progressively worse over a couple of days until 3 weeks ago on a Friday she

started hitting her head against a wall and being angry and combative. The

assisted living place called me and I had her in-town caretaker go over (I live

in Boston) to see if she could calm her down, but she couldn't. I had the

assisted living place call 911 and they brought her into the ER and then

admitted her to the hospital. My husband and I were lucky to get a flight that

evening and arrived in Michigan about midnight. I stayed with her that night,

and although she was highly paranoid, she was still " there " cognitively.

The town she lives in is a very small town with a county hospital, so they have

no psych unit and no geriatric speciality. It took about a week but she calmed

down (mostly because she was overly medicated) on 100 mg Serequal spread over a

day (for the paranoia) and .25mg Xanax 4 times a day (for the high agitation).

Last Tuesday she and I flew out to Boston with a hired RN. She is now at Belmont

Manor in Belmont, MA.

They started to lower the dose of the xanax last week, and we'll see what

happens this coming week. She can now no longer feed herself or walk and is

completely incontinent. She is combative (and yelling) with any type of personal

care. She does not always acknowledge that I am there and does not understand

that she has been moved. She can go from being weepy to angry to scared in a

matter of minutes, and then the cycle will start again.

I believe that she understood her diagnosis, and I don't know if that is causing

some of these behaviours or if this is just the disease or the medication.

There's so much more but this is a start. Thanks!

[Guest guest]

,

So glad to hear that you've got your mother settled into a care facility nearby.

I'm sure that's a relief. Good idea to try to reduce the Xanas. Is she still

taking Seroquel? Keep us posted....

Robin

>

> Hi everyone - I have posted a few questions in the forum but have not formally

introduced myself or my mom. Mom was diagnosed at Mayo Clinic in MN in October

with LBD. I had taken her there because she had declined rapidly in a couple of

months - she went from being able to live by herself in her own home to no

longer being able to care for herself.

>