Hi All,
This is a great forum! Sorry for the really long first post, but our family don’t really know how to cope….
My 73 year old Grandma has just been diagnosed with Dementia.
We’ve suspected a problem for over a year, but the results came back for her CT scan last week, and they have said it is the first stages of dementia. She has been prescribed Reminyl XL.
I have been reading about Reminyl XL, and the steps of Alzheimer’s, and the family cannot work out the outbursts she is having.
One night she was convinced that her husband was trying to lock her in her house. Even phoning the police (who came out).
For the past few weeks (on odd nights), she has been saying that the home she has lived in for over 40 years, isn’t her home, and that’s not where she lives.
And the worst problem was last night – where she was convinced that her husband was trying to kill her by mixing her tablets up, and putting them in the wrong boxes. This lead to her walking out of her home, and demanding that she will not be going back. Sitting at our house (who live close by), until 2am.
What is strange about these anger driven flare-ups is apart from being very confused about the cause of the problem (like very confused about her tablets), she seems to remember everything. Events that have just happened. Conversations. Events from just a few minutes a go. There is no sign of forgetting anything, seeming perfectly normal except for the shouting and accusing of her husband trying to kill her by mixing her tablets up.
Eventually, at 2am, after being upstairs and back in her own home, she just came downstairs in her night clothes and said “Hello”. With no sign that anything had happened over the last few hours. Like the whole event was a dream.
We don’t know what is going on. What she is doing doesn’t seem to match with the level of dementia the hospital says she had.
Why does she have total memory and no confusion about what is going on, except for the single “angry” thought? Could it be something else, not just dementia?
She has only taken 3 of her Reminyl tablets, so they won’t have done anything yet, but will they help these outbursts, or just make sure they don’t get any worse?
Is the “36 hour day” a book worth buying?
Thanks for any help in answering these mixed up questions!!
Cheers.
This is a great forum! Sorry for the really long first post, but our family don’t really know how to cope….
My 73 year old Grandma has just been diagnosed with Dementia.
We’ve suspected a problem for over a year, but the results came back for her CT scan last week, and they have said it is the first stages of dementia. She has been prescribed Reminyl XL.
I have been reading about Reminyl XL, and the steps of Alzheimer’s, and the family cannot work out the outbursts she is having.
One night she was convinced that her husband was trying to lock her in her house. Even phoning the police (who came out).
For the past few weeks (on odd nights), she has been saying that the home she has lived in for over 40 years, isn’t her home, and that’s not where she lives.
And the worst problem was last night – where she was convinced that her husband was trying to kill her by mixing her tablets up, and putting them in the wrong boxes. This lead to her walking out of her home, and demanding that she will not be going back. Sitting at our house (who live close by), until 2am.
What is strange about these anger driven flare-ups is apart from being very confused about the cause of the problem (like very confused about her tablets), she seems to remember everything. Events that have just happened. Conversations. Events from just a few minutes a go. There is no sign of forgetting anything, seeming perfectly normal except for the shouting and accusing of her husband trying to kill her by mixing her tablets up.
Eventually, at 2am, after being upstairs and back in her own home, she just came downstairs in her night clothes and said “Hello”. With no sign that anything had happened over the last few hours. Like the whole event was a dream.
We don’t know what is going on. What she is doing doesn’t seem to match with the level of dementia the hospital says she had.
Why does she have total memory and no confusion about what is going on, except for the single “angry” thought? Could it be something else, not just dementia?
She has only taken 3 of her Reminyl tablets, so they won’t have done anything yet, but will they help these outbursts, or just make sure they don’t get any worse?
Is the “36 hour day” a book worth buying?
Thanks for any help in answering these mixed up questions!!
Cheers.