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My husband has Alz. and he is going thru a phase of just being totally scared of everything. sitting, getting up, going to bathroom. He seems to be hurting so badly and I don't know what to do to help him. I had to put into a home and some of the girls are great at calming him and others are awful. How can I help them?

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I think he needs medication. Does he have his own doctor or does he rely on the doctor at the NH?

He needs an antidepressant or an antipsychotic or an antianxiety drug. No one should have top live in that much fear. How is he when you are with him? Can he talk at all to express his fears? How do they calm him down? Can you get the other girls to use the same method?
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They need at least two weeks to adjust to the new environment, and medication for anxiety may be needed.
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I feel for you. My mother went through the same thing. She was in a constant state of fear and sadness. We had to work with her neurologist to adjust her medications. For her anxiety, he increased her Ativan to .5 mg 2x a day. from 1x/day To help alleviate the panic attacks (she thought her children were still babies, thinking we were lost and in danger) he added Seroquel. It was awful to see her suffering like this and the seroquel helped. She also takes 2- 50mg tabs of Sertraline (Zoloft) daily for depression and anxiety, plus a small dose of Ambien at bedtime to calm down for sleep. I have no guilt about all the meds. If it brings her some peace, then I'm good with it. As long as she's not "out of it", it's ok.
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I forgot to mention that we (and the staff at AL) still use diversion and calming techniques but the medications lessen the severity of her symptoms.
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You might ask your neurologist about PBA, a disorder that often accompanies AD (evincing either uncontrollable laughter or uncontrollable sobbing/crying). This IS TREATABLE!
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My mother did that for quite a few months before she passed. I would take her out for walks in the neighborhood to take her mind off of what was bothering her. It worked most of the time. We would talk about things we saw around us and her doctor put her on some anti-anxiety meds which seemed to help too.
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Yes we had the same thing early on,
about 7 and 1/2 years ago,
that is how I knew she had ALZ
they put her on 25 mgs. of sertraline,
which also helps with the neural transmitters,
in the brain, but out 86 year old is still home.

When she was in the AL facility,
nothing seemed to calm her down,
she thought it was a doctor's office
and was always waiting to leave.

She does not experience the crying jags,
now that she is back home.
t
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For sure, my mother was scared of everything, falling, bad dreams, bad thoughts, sometimes more fearful than other times. She got to the point where she could not tolerate being in the room alone, in bed alone. I heard about the UTI thing here and she did not have one, could he have one? It is very distressing for her, and very much for you. She needed Seroquel to adjust to respite care while waiting for placement. I am sure that since this happened before he went in, it may now still happen because of the new environment. It takes such a toll on you, you become a nervous wreck and fearful yourself. The good thing he is where he has professional staff watching him and you can calm yourself and visit him when your head is in a good place. I have to wait till I am at that point myself, but it is a healing process. I just hated my mother sobbing, I am alone when I am in the kitchen making dinner. Hang in there.
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In my humble opinion, would music therapy help?
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You know my cousin in Australia said they had a big study on music therapy and its benefits. I do know that when I was working on my laptop and my mother would NOT be alone and shadowed me all over, I'd put on her favorites, Perry Como, Mario Lanza, Frank Sinatra, Andre Boccelli (sp). It immediately calmed her and she loved it, but again, it is an EFFORT always, try some classical music, jazz, opera, whatever works, funny thing is my cat just loves the classical opera stuff funny as hell, and my other cat when she lived loved Toby Keith, no matter where she was in whatever snit, I'd put on some Toby and out she was happy as a clam. Music sure works.
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My mom is on similar medication mentioned by lulabear and it certainly does help. She is not 'out of it' nor does it cure all ills but it certainly helps keep her calmer and not afraid that her long dead mother is dying or someone is getting killed, etc. She used to like music but now says it is just noise no matter what kind it is. You have to find what works for your loved one. Good luck to you and prayers that you soon find a good solution.
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Madeaa, I agree with you, it does take effort. These last 6 months my mom has become agitated all the time when she's at home, with countless crying and sobbing spells, followed by screaming a couple hours at a time.... When she first started to get this bad, I was floored. Totally lost. I had absolutely no clue whatsoever what to do anymore to distract or calm her.

That's the name of the game, 'Distract & Calm'. I spent entire days trying to distract my mom, one way or the other. I put on the TV, we tried music a couple times, we were in the room with her almost every minute, my son and I, because she literally couldn't be out of our site for even a couple minutes. In the beginning, all the suggestions above worked for me, and also the distraction of food. I fed my mom... a lot. And my mom likes to eat. If she'd start wailing and getting to a certain point and nothing else was cutting it, I'd give her a slice of watermelon, a few strawberries, some yogurt with bananas in it...whatever. Worked like a charm...for awhile anyway.... It bought me at least an hour of semi quiet... I knew this state of mind wasn't a good one, but it felt like I had to literally fight the doctor to get anything at all to calm her... I kept leaving her messages to no avail.... Finally, one of the aides called down there to the doctor's office and told them that my mom needed some kind of happy pill to calm her, thanks... And sure enough, finally, we got somewhere... Sometimes, unfortunately, nothing seems to work, and you have to get something to comfort them somehow... It's an extremely difficult thing for a care giver to watch. I mean, here's this person that you're trying to care for, sobbing away and you can't seem to help them at all, no matter what... It hurts to see someone in that state, you feel like your guts are being ripped out, and yeah, your nerves get shot real quick if it goes on too long... I felt like I had razor blades in my gut when my mom got that way. I didn't just want to help her for her sake, I wanted to help her for mine, too. Nobody wants to see and deal with someone who looks like they're clearly suffering. I hated seeing my mom like that. Get drugs if you have to, but talk to the doc...it sounds like he might need to be looked at, and prescribed something to calm him... Stay strong..
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I wonder if giving your loved one something to suck would help when they get into these agitated states. It works with babies (usually) Has anyone had success with a lollipop?
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Thank you all for your input.
My husband today when I arrived at his facility he was in a back room away from everybody else as his yelling and sobbing is so loud. I just sat and listened to him and he sobbed and sobbed and said we must go find Johnny. Johnny needs my help. We must go now. I said I can;t go now my legs hurt (I have periphial nueropathy) I need to sit for awhile. He started cursing and yelling hateful things at me. I just walked outside the room for a minute and then walked back. He was calm for a minute, then he started all over again. They brought dinner and I had a very hard time getting him to eat anything and even his medicines. He takes Bispirone for anxiety,Tregretol for moods citaloprian (Celexa) for depression and also Serogqul 2'xs a day. We have a dr appt. on Monday afternoon , but we still need to get thru the whole weekend. I was there today from 1:30p.m. until6:30 p.m. and he was like that the whole time. I feel so drained tonight.
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Thank you all for your support and anxwers. We saw the nuerologist today and went over meds. He is taking him off the bispirone (anxiety med) and putting him on another anxiety medicine called antivan.. I pray that this will work. He loves music so I intend to get headphones and try that next. He sat in his recliner at home with cd player right behind him and always loved his church & country western music.He's already on Seroguil and tegretol meds for moods & paranois. He may be sleepy, but that will be better than his hurting somebody.
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Dear Penrp4, I'd say it is time for you to stay away from him for a bit. You can't put yourself through this punishment. You did nothing to cause his dementia, you can not fix it, but I will tell you from experience if you do not stay away enough you will be very sick from him. You aren't giving up on him, he is being taken care of, but you are not. Take care of yourself, you must self preserve.
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