Hi there. Im totally new to this but reading posts and comments on here have really helped me through my Mums 6+years battle with Vascular Dementia. Mum is 80 and around 5 months ago was expressing extremely agitated, bordering on aggressive behaviour. She was up all night and hardly slept during the day and was put on 25mg of the antipsychotic drug Amisulpride. This never touched the side and eventually her dose increased to 75mg during the day and 75mg at night. It seemed to help, especially with night time agitation. During the past 5 or 6 weeks mum has become increasingly sleepy. We were asked if we thought she was being oversedated. We didnt think so based on the fact that mums most alert and active part of the day was straight after her daytime dose. In hindsight i should have at that point asked why she was still on it. We tried last week to have her amisulpride reduced then stopped as we see no reason for her to be taking it anymore, and worry that it could be making her sleepier than she would be without it. The daytime dose was reduced to 50mg. I understand that this drug has to reduced gradually, but in the past week Mum has deteriorated so that she is very weak, sleeps most of the time, hardly opens her eyes, has no mobility whatsoever, and is now only opening her mouth when prompted for fluids and blended, liquidy foods. We are frustrated that we need to still give her the Amisulpride and i feel dreadful that she might be slightly more alert without it. I am going to phone them back first thing on monday to update them on mums condition and take things from there. I am also contacting the dietician and try and get speech and language therapy involved to assess mums eating and drinking. I also want to see the GP to let him know where Mum is at with the dementia. Im also thinking of contacting the local dementia coordinator to see if she will give us some advice on Mums stage in the condition. We care for Mum at home with no carers. However we constantly seek support and advice when needed. Unfortunately we feel we have just been left to get on with it and feel a bit lost right now. Apologies for the long post and thanks for reading. Much love to anyone on this journey. xxxx
Amisulpride usage
- Thread starter SandieMac
- Start date
hello @SandieMac
a warm welcome posting on to TP - I'm glad that reading around the forum has been helping you
my gosh how on earth are you managing with no home care support?
if there's no particular reason why, do contact your Local Authority Adult Services to tell them of your situation and ask for an urgent assessment of your mum's acre needs, as there may be quite of bit of support available eg home care visits, a befriender, an OT to check her home for helpful aids/adaptions - it's useful just to have your mum flagged up on the LA's system
if you are concerned about the LA moving your mum into a care home, it is unlikely that this would be their course of action, as they generally prefer to support a person o stay in their own home for as long as possible
and if you are concerned about having to sell your mum's property to pay for her care, that is not the case - as long as she and/or her spouse lives in the house it is disregarded in any financial assessment
I have no experience of the meds you are worried about - you have suggested all the directions I would have mentioned - definitely talk with the GP asap
the only other idea I had was to contact Admiral Nurses
https://www.dementiauk.org/
best wishes
a warm welcome posting on to TP - I'm glad that reading around the forum has been helping you
my gosh how on earth are you managing with no home care support?
if there's no particular reason why, do contact your Local Authority Adult Services to tell them of your situation and ask for an urgent assessment of your mum's acre needs, as there may be quite of bit of support available eg home care visits, a befriender, an OT to check her home for helpful aids/adaptions - it's useful just to have your mum flagged up on the LA's system
if you are concerned about the LA moving your mum into a care home, it is unlikely that this would be their course of action, as they generally prefer to support a person o stay in their own home for as long as possible
and if you are concerned about having to sell your mum's property to pay for her care, that is not the case - as long as she and/or her spouse lives in the house it is disregarded in any financial assessment
I have no experience of the meds you are worried about - you have suggested all the directions I would have mentioned - definitely talk with the GP asap
the only other idea I had was to contact Admiral Nurses
https://www.dementiauk.org/
best wishes
hello @SandieMac
a warm welcome posting on to TP - I'm glad that reading around the forum has been helping you
my gosh how on earth are you managing with no home care support?
if there's no particular reason why, do contact your Local Authority Adult Services to tell them of your situation and ask for an urgent assessment of your mum's acre needs, as there may be quite of bit of support available eg home care visits, a befriender, an OT to check her home for helpful aids/adaptions - it's useful just to have your mum flagged up on the LA's system
if you are concerned about the LA moving your mum into a care home, it is unlikely that this would be their course of action, as they generally prefer to support a person o stay in their own home for as
Hi there, and thanks for your reply. Its actually our own choice to look after my wee Mum by ourselves. We are a very close family who live very near each other and thats the only reason we can do care at home. Since being Mums primary carer i have involved any professionals relevant to her care so she is known to social work as she has a psychiatric nurse. Ive been trying to arrange OT to do an assessment for weeks now and was told on 2 occasions that the waiting list to be assessed is massive. However mums CPN has arranged an OT from her own department to call in next week. I was also told Mum didnt need speech and language to be involved but tomorrow when i phone i am not taking no for an answer. I am determined to be the voice ma wee Mum doesnt have anymore. You are all an inspiration to me and i admire anyone in the position we are all in. Much love
Hi SandieMac, it can be some what a hit and miss approach when it comes with to vascular dementia and agitation/hostility. Many a time I have had to endure a few well aimed punches from clients who you would think were not able to do such a thing. Can I ask was Amisulperide the first medication they used to help reduce the aggression? I would have thought that Respiridone 12.5mg should have been one of the first atypical antipsychotic to be used and monitored on a regular basis. Amisulperide should have been very carefully watched by a CPN.
One thing else could have been in the picture was she checked for any infections such as Urine infection, constipation chest infection, diabetes low or high blood glucose or any other toxic problem including Amisulperide toxicity. If not checked I would ask the MDT dealing with Mother why these things were not checked. All of these things could have caused drowsiness. Thanks for listening Peter
Hi Peter and thanks for your reply. Yes Mum was put on Amisulpride for extreme agitation and aggression usually aimed at my poor Dad because she wanted to go 'home' to her childhood house. She had just had her kidney function tested not long before being prescrived antipsychotic meds. She was actually prescribed Quetiapine first but had an adverse reaction to this so stopped asap. As of Monday we have been told to stop the Amisulpride as i basically informed of how ill Mum appeared to be. We are now waiting to see if there is any change in Mum especially with regards to her being so sleepy all of the time. This is presenting problems with her eating and drinking but awaiting a S&L involvement. Had a district nurse out today who gave us more information 20 minutes than we have had from most ppl involved in Mums care over the 6 years since diagnosis. Much love to all on this journey.xx
