Alert some days and down others. Anyone else see this in dementia people?

I don't know what the answer is but I imagine it is fairly common. My mother, 88, has had the dementia that comes along with parkinsons disease and a number of strokes. In a nursing home for almost two years, lately one day she's alert and back to her mean and nasty self then a day or two later she's a crumpled heap of skin and bone, sleeping all the time and looking like she won't make it through the next 24 hours.

The doctor says it's just natural progression (she had another stroke 2 weeks ago) but everyone is different. Perhaps your father is taking a medication that isn't agreeing with him?

to sunnygirl: yes my father had been diagnosed with moderate to severe dementia/alzheimers just a couple weeks before he fell 2 times within 24 hours and was in ER. no broken bones/fractures, but my mother is no longer able to care for him. she is 87 with arthritis in knees/back. he is on arricept and 2 others for the anxiety/depression. but he has been like this even before the meds so I guess the roller coaster ride is what we are on. And in real life I hate them..haha ...have to make a joke. thanks for everyone's input

Does your dad have a diagnosis? Do they know what is causing his dementia?

I am exhausted trying to make some sense of it. We are in the process of testing now to get a definite diagnosis for my cousin, but with dementia it seems to be so unpredictable. One minute my cousin is having an anxiety spell, crying, making irrational comments and complaining, but an hour later, she has no memory of it and is fine. I have lost sleep over issues she was having, but the next morning they were non-existent. Her behavior is all over the place.

I'm not sure what you do. I will make some kind of decisions after we get a definite diagnosis, but even then, This unpredictable and frustrating behavior is likely to get worse over time, not better. I guess the next step is to see if there are any medications that can stabilize things. I guess that's my only hope.

We all ride that roller coaster, from one minute to the next. The hills get higher and the curves get sharper and sometimes everything is upside down. At the end you want to hit the brakes. There aren't any.