Sectioning!

[Mandy76]

@Mandy76 That's very interesting to read, did your Mum have low sodium at the end of April when you say the dementia happened overnight? Did she have a urinary infection? Based on your experience I would definitely contact the Dr to have them try to find out why the levels are dropping and try to stabilize them, if only to prevent another episode. It is only my experience with my Mum that has made me believe that either the depletion of sodium or the rate at which they replaced it that contributed to the 'vascular event' that seemed to result in her rapid decline into dementia. @Rosserk's experience seems to have the same factors. Of course in each of our cases a urinary infection actually started the chain of events, so who really knows. Just another mystery in trying to make any sense of this horrid disease. Best of luck .

Well when she suddenly went strange, we took her to the doctor and they did blood tests and tested for UTIs but everything came back normal. Her sodium wasn't outwith the normal levels at that point. But it was only when I requested a print out of her results after the hospitalisation in July, it had all the previous blood tests she had on it, and that is when I noticed the sodium gradually dropping. It was like 143, then six months later 141, then six months after that 139 - by the time she was hospitalised it was 126. After it was treated, it went back up.

She is now back in hospital with constant delusions and she's been in there for nearly 5 weeks so far. I just wonder if depleting minerals in the body could trigger something and should doctors be on the lookout for this type of thing, like look at the pattern not just the current level?

 

[CardiffGirlInEssex]

I suspect that the dementia begins to affect all the bodily processes including digestion, enzymes, hormones etc. There is so much focus on the personality and mental changes but the brain controls everything so loss of brain must affect everything. If this is the case, there would be limits as to what can be done to correct imbalances, I would have thought, if the brain can no longer signal to the body how to process supplementary inputs.

 

[Ang272]

Hey,
I’ve just come across this post, my mum started hallucinating and becoming really delusional just before Xmas. She was ‘arguing with her sister’ over her top floor balcony and constantly threatening to jump. We ended up calling and ambulance for her, and she’s been in hospital since. That was nearly 4 weeks ago.
They did numerous tests to see what caused the sudden delirium but found nothing. She’s been on risperidone now for 2wks, although I haven’t seen much improvement. They are planning to move her to a mental health hospital that has a specialised old age ward, as she is physically well so the hospital won’t keep her in there any longer.
It has been the longest 4 weeks, but to be honest it’s been a bit of a breather since she’s been in there.
This disease is a real life soul snatcher and I’m so glad I’ve found this forum because it’s so reassuring knowing people are going through similar things.