My grandad is 80 and just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. He is often experiencing distressing delusions that he has another house and wife somewhere else and is obsessed with the idea and constantly wandering around looking for this house and wife elsewhere. The head psychiatrist has mentioned putting him on anti psychotic meds. Have read some horror stories about these in the elderly. Wondered if anyone had any advice or knowledge on this. TIA Emma
Anti physchotics
- Thread starter Equinn
- Start date
Have a read through
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=548
Personally I would resist the use of anti psychotics unless they were needed to moderate challenging behaviour.
You could ask the psychiatrist if they were started and then stopped because of troubling side effects whether or not these side effect would cease when the medication was stopped.
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/site/scripts/documents_info.php?documentID=548
Personally I would resist the use of anti psychotics unless they were needed to moderate challenging behaviour.
You could ask the psychiatrist if they were started and then stopped because of troubling side effects whether or not these side effect would cease when the medication was stopped.
Hi Equinn,
My OH was put on antipsychotics after a period of delusions, difficult behaviour and hallucinations. It was a low dose, slowly increased to an effective level. Unfortunately it caused him to have more TIAs ( he had vascular dementia as well as Alzheimer's ). The antipsychotic was then slowly decreased and replaced with memantine, which he tolerated well.
Like most other drugs, different people tolerate different drugs and sometimes it's a guessing game! However, the antipsychotic did its job, which was the main thing in my case.
My OH was put on antipsychotics after a period of delusions, difficult behaviour and hallucinations. It was a low dose, slowly increased to an effective level. Unfortunately it caused him to have more TIAs ( he had vascular dementia as well as Alzheimer's ). The antipsychotic was then slowly decreased and replaced with memantine, which he tolerated well.
Like most other drugs, different people tolerate different drugs and sometimes it's a guessing game! However, the antipsychotic did its job, which was the main thing in my case.
Hi Equinn. My husband was on antipsychotics for over four years. His consultant tried a couple which had no affect on his horrific paranoia & hallucinations, but finally he was prescribed Risperidone, which was gradually increased to 1.5mg per day. For my husband, this worked very well, and gave him quite a good quality of life for a couple more years - and enabled me to care for him at home for far longer than I could have coped otherwise. Thankfully, William also tolerated the drug really well - not everyone gets bad side effects. It didn't even make him any way drowsy. William was also on trazadone (molipaxin), Exelon patches and ebixa to try and keep agitation and aggression under control, and give him some quality of life.
