My mum was prescribed this on her discharge from hospital last year and oh goodness what a change, she previously had been anxious, suspicious and paranoid, the medication really helped.
After about 6 months she began sleeping more and more and when I mentioned it I was told this might be the Rispiridone, but I wasn't convinced as she had been on it for 6 months before the sleepiness hit.
Following a visit to the Dementia consultant he explained that the ( NICE, I think he mentioned) guideline was to only keep someone on it short term without trying to stop, due to the adverse side effects and long term problems it might cause, as you can imagine I wasn't very keen however he said if she began showing the same behaviour we could review it, she was then weaned off it over a period of 4 weeks....the hope was that the dementia phase that caused the anxiety had passed and we would only know once she was off it.
Anyway, as I feared she declined, ok, she was awake more, but all her waking hours were filled with fear, fear of not being safe and not having enough food, some days she would eat constantly having forgotten she had eaten only minutes before, I could barely keep up with it, she would go downstairs in the middle of the night looking for food/the way out/how to get off the boat ( ?) talking non stop and generally agitated and miserable, ( me too) I began thinking she might have to go into a home as I couldn't cope with her long term if this was how she was going to be.
After only a couple of weeks I asked for the review and it was decided to put her back on it, and has been on it since, she has gone back to sleeping most of the day and only occasionally has moments of anxiety, but overall she feels safe and I can manage. The consultant is happy for her to be on it too as now he can justify her being kept on it long term.
When they weaned her off it they also added memantine, at first I thought this was helping but after only a couple of weeks I changed my opinion and dont feel it has made any difference and on her next review I will ask them if it is worth keeping her on it as she is occasionally struggling to swallow so less tablets must be better.
I would have no reservations of saying try it, it made such a huge difference to mum x