My mother has just been in a residential home for two years and has been on various anxiety relieving drugs and tranquillisers. One was Zuclopenthixol. I questioned this many times but was always told the doctor knew best.
She was a little aggressive when she first went in the home, but the only real problem she can cause is that she can scream or squeal if someone tries to get her to do something she doesn't want. If they explain things to her, all is well.
The result of the drugs was that she was almost always asleep when I visited and stopped talking, her hands shook, they didn't bother to wake her for food and drinks, and when she became dehydrated, they sent her to hospital and refused to have her back.
In hospital, she soon came round and was completely different. The nurses loved her, she talked, told everyone she loved them, and she never stopped eating and drinking. One weekend when they were short staffed, they gave all the patients Lorazepam, and my mother was just the same as before, sleepy, wouldn't eat, shaking etc.
Now she has gone into a nursing home. We discussed what had happened with being drugged up before she went in. I have been visiting every other day, and most days she is fine, except once when she had been given a drug for aggitation (not sure what yet) and again the effects were the same.
Doctors don't seem to know what to prescribe, some of these drugs sound dangerous. In the residential home the staff seemed to came more about a quite life for themselves. Should relatives get a say in what is given, is there any particular drugs that have proved useful for anxiety or mild aggression ?
She was a little aggressive when she first went in the home, but the only real problem she can cause is that she can scream or squeal if someone tries to get her to do something she doesn't want. If they explain things to her, all is well.
The result of the drugs was that she was almost always asleep when I visited and stopped talking, her hands shook, they didn't bother to wake her for food and drinks, and when she became dehydrated, they sent her to hospital and refused to have her back.
In hospital, she soon came round and was completely different. The nurses loved her, she talked, told everyone she loved them, and she never stopped eating and drinking. One weekend when they were short staffed, they gave all the patients Lorazepam, and my mother was just the same as before, sleepy, wouldn't eat, shaking etc.
Now she has gone into a nursing home. We discussed what had happened with being drugged up before she went in. I have been visiting every other day, and most days she is fine, except once when she had been given a drug for aggitation (not sure what yet) and again the effects were the same.
Doctors don't seem to know what to prescribe, some of these drugs sound dangerous. In the residential home the staff seemed to came more about a quite life for themselves. Should relatives get a say in what is given, is there any particular drugs that have proved useful for anxiety or mild aggression ?