Re: Fainting / Freezing up

[Guest guest]

Kate,

We have heard that more that more than once here.  Some patients do even longer

than you are talking about.  I didn't have that problem with my Mom, but read

it here more than a few times. Wonder what it is all about.  I am not sure we

know.  Mom did do  blood pressure meds to the end.  But she couldn't do most

drugs and I had her off most of them.  She did do thyroid pills too.

Donna R

Fainting / Freezing up

 

Hello,

I am new to the group but have been following some of the discussions. I'm

hoping that someone with more experience or knowledge will be able to help.

The woman that I assist has been suffering from faints / losses of consciousness

recently. Her doctor is reluctant with LBD since she has had a diagnosis of

Alzheimer's for roughly 10 years now (she is currently 67). However, her

physical symptoms and lack of severe memory issues seem to argue in favor of

LBD. At any rate, her doctor has not been able to reach a conclusion about the

cause of these episodes and as each one is different, we are left at a loss for

how to predict or control them. I will describe the last three incidents since

they all differed somewhat, in hopes that someone has had a similar experience

or can help at all.

1. We had gone for a short walk around the block and upon returning home, her

legs buckled. Her eyes were open but she was unresponsive for about 1 to 2

minutes. This time, we called for emergency medical help and she was in the

hospital for observation. They only determined that there had been a drop in

blood pressure.

2. We again had gone for a short walk (fairly common as she enjoys this). We

were standing in a bus shelter, sitting when again her legs buckled. Her eyes

were closed for roughly 1 minute but she was responsive the entire time. She

began vomiting for ~ 10 minutes.

3. We were sitting down to coffee when all of the sudden her head dropped. Her

eyes remained open but her head was rigid and fixed in place. She was

unresponsive for almost 5 minutes, during which time she began to drool and

urinated herself. When she awoke, she was totally unaware of what had happened.

Each time, she was " back to normal " and completely fine within an hour after the

incident. We decided not to take her to the hospital after the first incident

since she did not receive proper care (no one fed her or assisted her with

water) and their results were inconclusive. However, her doctor did fit her with

a heart monitor and discovered that her heart rate varied drastically from one

moment to the next.

Basically, we are just looking to see whether this a natural progression of the

disease or whether it is a side effect of something or triggered by a certain

activity. Hopefully someone out there can be of help since she absolutely hates

being stuck inside all day but if these " fits " become more frequent, it will be

increasingly dangerous and difficult to take her out anywhere. I feel like so

far we have been lucky that they have not happened anywhere dangerous or

inconvenient.

Thank you in advance for any help on this!