Mom has vascular dementia and Alzheimer's. Dad has mobility issues. They moved to assisted living two weeks ago. Mom takes memantine, Aricept, and began taking Seroquel last week (dosage was upped today to 25mg twice daily from 25mg once daily). She is still yelling, angry, wants to leave, feels imprisoned, wants to drive her own car (which is not there). These behaviors began pre-ALF, but we were hoping being in ALF would provide her with activities, thus distracting her from constantly berating the family. The Dr. at the ALF has suggested taking away the Aricept, to move her out of the stage she is in. A family member, who is an M.D. specializing in geriatrics has suggested Respiradone instead of Seroquel (he has not examined my mom). I am aware that Respiradone and Seroquel are Black Box Labeled for dementia and the risks of both. Please let me know if you have experienced these issues and what medications or withholding of medications has been successful. Thank you.
You could get 100 responses here and none of them may resemble your future observations. You may even be persuaded to push for what turns out to be the wrong choice, just by seeing others' successes or horror stories.
Best to go with docs' advice.
Thanks for starting this thread, mrmoose, it’s helping me too so I can be more informed when speaking to mom’s doctors about what they suggest. She just got kicked out of an MC after 40 days (and investment of her money and my time & effort) with supposed oversight of how her current meds were working. They weren’t.
We could understand her, we had fun, we danced and sang and did yard work and whistled and marched around the yard to John Phillip Sousa music.
Risperidone did that for us.
Best of luck to you and your family ... the anger is so hard to deal with. God Bless!
Susan