My peaceable ,sweet husband is giving the help some problems as he wanders the halls looking for me in the N.H.. He also packs in his room to get on an airplane to go back to Minnesota - where we live!He packs his clothes, pictures, etc. He can't find his room during the day and generally appears to be on the decline. The head nurse differed me when I called it agitation. She didn't think that was what it was. But that is certainly what I would call it. We took him off Namenda a couple of months ago and I'm wondering if that has impacted him. She said she didn't want him on drugs to calm him, but I would be willing to gamble on something from the doctor, so I will call her tomorrow. If this continues he will have to go to another city 17 miles away which would be a burden on me to drive - especially during the winter. Any ideas would be welcome - paricularily about the Namenda.
if it were me and he was doing better on the namenda i think i would try that again better than an unknown med he hasnt tried. many of us see a difference when they are taken off the AD meds, and some of us see an improvement. it depends i guess on the person and variant of dementia they have. if you don twant to move him then of course you should address his behavior asap to try to find a good choice to keep him calm and compliant. sundowning can occur at odd times, not necessarily aggitation but it goes hand in hand sometimes. hope it works out for you. divvi
The doctor told me that the Namenda was doing nothing for Lloyd so I tried to eliminate it. Didn't work. The Namenda made the difference. I got it down to one 10mg. tab a day and we are now trying one tab every other day. I have been doing that for about 2 weeks now and can see we will have to go back to one every day. Remember that you are the expert and the nurse only does this as a job. And as we all know, if you've seen one person with Alz, you've seen one person with Alz. Nobody is the same and YOU know him.
No one knows your LO better than you. Namenda has made a big difference in my wife's behavior. She is on 1 ea. morning and night. Have great doc that understands the meds,said some patients do better with different doses at different times a day.
Forgive me, but I can't understand why this would be considered a problem, nor ground for having to move him to a different facility. Is this not an Alzheimer's unit? Surely they are trained and equipped to handle this mild behavior. It us up to them to distract him and comfort him when this behavior starts. This is their job and they shouldn't be causing you to worry. I would say this is relatively common behavior when one is transitioning.