Mom was diagnosed with short term memory loss dementia and complained of sporadic nighttime hallucinations. Her geriatric specialist weaned her off of Xanax suspecting that may be the cause. Fast forward one month and the hallucinations have increased significantly and she sleeps more than usual. Yet some days seems nearly normal. Dr. now suspects LBD. I'm not all that familiar with this form of dementia, but have read it is second in diagnosis to Alzheimer's. Has anyone have experience with this? I want to do what is best moving forward and would appreciate any input.
JeanneGibbs took care of her husband Coy for 10 yrs at home. You might find her posts helpful. She also shared caretaking with her sisters for her mom.
You can use the search to find her posts.
Ive attached one where she mentions his care team. I found it by putting just Coy in the search and then looking through the various posts.
https://www.agingcare.com/discussions/unexpected-post-caregiving-effect-163500.htm?orderby=recent
And a fabulous cake-maker :) May she be thriving.
I am absolutely fascinated with my brother's hallucinations. Many are not troubling to him, most occur at night, often after he has got up to go to the bathroom.
He has some balance issues, which can also happen with Lewy's but in his case the lucky guy has a benign brain tumor, likely there above the medulla, balance center of the brain, for decades and getting more and more pressure causing balance issues. There is quite a lot of urgency and more frequency with urination, and so far, with a bit of short term issues, a bit more anxiety for certain, and a bad reaction when anxious, that's it for him in this early stages if that is what he has.
I am utterly astounded by the way he can describe his hallucinations, almost like a movie, down to the way folks are dressed and what they look like. Also says he often has to work backwards from what he sees and perceives to what he knows to be real. For instance looking about 1/2 block in distance can mistake the wheel well and wheel of a van for someone bending over weeding with long black hair spilling over. He knows that isn't it and so he works out what he IS seeing, and when I look at what he saw I can "see" how he saw it the way he did.
We can't know where he is going with this. He had a bad car accident, at 85 won't be driving again, and has been in assisted living where he feels so much the "well one" that he feels like he is a care worker. He is moving back to his condo to give that a try. We are 3/4 state away from one another and I only can fly to him, and he will have to hire folks to take him shopping and etc. But this is a window of time he wants to try to have on his own if he is able. Scares me, but I cannot tell him no. He has given over the management of his accounts/Trust to me as POA and Trustee of Trust, so I am feeling quite lame myself, having to learn lots of new things I never wanted to know.
There is a lot of stuff online. More than really you need to try to absorb right now. And I will tell you Facebook has some good sites as well, with one man who has it and who lectures and does a FB page.
Good luck. Stay tuned. Hope there are others here that can support us as we move along.