hi everyone,
Wondered if anyone had any bright ideas! My Mum (83) is not well. At Xmas last year she started to say she could see people in the trees outside her house - what started as lumber jacks soon became police men in orange jackets, and some sort of outward bound course.
My Dad died in May this year and she's been sliding downhill rapidly ever since. She has lived alone since his death and has cooked meals for him, packed a bag ready to leave as he won't speak to her, phoned her GPs because she says he has no head and she can't get him to eat or drink anything. Then it was 'he's leaving me to live with someone else and I have no money'. I also suspect she's been acting out dreams - items in odd places in the house - so a leaf blower hauled out the garage and put in an upstairs bedroom, cushions out of thier covers and hauled upstairs etc.
She's had blood tests, urine tests, ecg's, chest X-rays - all normal. An mri scan revealed 'Ischaemic changes and atrophy, particularly affecting the temporal poles'. In July the psychiatrist wrote to the gp stating a diagnosis of 'dementia syndrome (under investigation)'. She was prescribed some antidepressants and risperidone - they didn't help and Mum stopped taking them. She was then prescribed aripiprazole - and she paid for a career to go in To ensure she took them correctly, that was in mid-September. At the end of September we saw the psychiatrist again, I said I thought she was worse, she was certainly hallucinating more. The dose was increased on 3 October and on the 10th she was admitted to the a&e department of a local hospital as she'd dialled 111 stating my Dad wasn't responding to her. She's currently still in!
She's had a further scan (no evidence of stroke), they stopped the anti depressants and aripiprazole and started her on respiridone again (in consultation with the psychiatrist). She's still hallucinating really vividly (though I suspect the ward staff don't notice) and talking nonsense (far more so than she was prior to the aripiprazole being prescribed). Yesterday (Monday) she was assessed by two psychiatric nurses attached to the hospital. They were going to report back to the psychiatrist - but I've heard nothing further.
Mum has moved ward today and is so disorientated, confused, depressed and hallucinating. How can I get her out of the general hospital and get a complete psychiatric review? The psychiatrist has suggested she may be suffering from complex grief, late on set schitzophrenia and/or some form of dementia. To my mind she's poorly served by being on a stroke unit in a general hospital where staff are too busy to notice she's hallucinating and is depressed and simply want to say 'she's confused'. I feel she should be reviewed with a view to adjusting or altering meds and to have some firm diagnosis. Anyone else have similar experiences?
Wondered if anyone had any bright ideas! My Mum (83) is not well. At Xmas last year she started to say she could see people in the trees outside her house - what started as lumber jacks soon became police men in orange jackets, and some sort of outward bound course.
My Dad died in May this year and she's been sliding downhill rapidly ever since. She has lived alone since his death and has cooked meals for him, packed a bag ready to leave as he won't speak to her, phoned her GPs because she says he has no head and she can't get him to eat or drink anything. Then it was 'he's leaving me to live with someone else and I have no money'. I also suspect she's been acting out dreams - items in odd places in the house - so a leaf blower hauled out the garage and put in an upstairs bedroom, cushions out of thier covers and hauled upstairs etc.
She's had blood tests, urine tests, ecg's, chest X-rays - all normal. An mri scan revealed 'Ischaemic changes and atrophy, particularly affecting the temporal poles'. In July the psychiatrist wrote to the gp stating a diagnosis of 'dementia syndrome (under investigation)'. She was prescribed some antidepressants and risperidone - they didn't help and Mum stopped taking them. She was then prescribed aripiprazole - and she paid for a career to go in To ensure she took them correctly, that was in mid-September. At the end of September we saw the psychiatrist again, I said I thought she was worse, she was certainly hallucinating more. The dose was increased on 3 October and on the 10th she was admitted to the a&e department of a local hospital as she'd dialled 111 stating my Dad wasn't responding to her. She's currently still in!
She's had a further scan (no evidence of stroke), they stopped the anti depressants and aripiprazole and started her on respiridone again (in consultation with the psychiatrist). She's still hallucinating really vividly (though I suspect the ward staff don't notice) and talking nonsense (far more so than she was prior to the aripiprazole being prescribed). Yesterday (Monday) she was assessed by two psychiatric nurses attached to the hospital. They were going to report back to the psychiatrist - but I've heard nothing further.
Mum has moved ward today and is so disorientated, confused, depressed and hallucinating. How can I get her out of the general hospital and get a complete psychiatric review? The psychiatrist has suggested she may be suffering from complex grief, late on set schitzophrenia and/or some form of dementia. To my mind she's poorly served by being on a stroke unit in a general hospital where staff are too busy to notice she's hallucinating and is depressed and simply want to say 'she's confused'. I feel she should be reviewed with a view to adjusting or altering meds and to have some firm diagnosis. Anyone else have similar experiences?
