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Several blood pressure and heart-related medications have just been prescribed for my mother. She started taking them last night and she has been hallucinating today. She is in and assisted living facility, but today she thought I had been there and left without telling her I was leaving. She was panicking because she thought she was alone. When I told her that I was still at work, she couldn't understand how that was possible. Could this be caused by the new medications? To my knowledge, she hasn't had any hallucinations in months prior to today.

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A report was just published concerning statins and memory loss. My mother is 87 and had bypass surgery at 80. Her short term memory is practically non-existent after 7 years on statins and when she went back on BP medicine, she got worse. If I had it to do over again, I would've taken her off of the statins when she came to live with me 6 years ago. So what if she has high cholesterol. It took her 80 years to have a mild heart attack with no damage before statins.I truly believe the fewer meds the better for all of us and so do some physicians. What's the point of just keeping someone alive who can't function? The Dr's have been handing out statins like they did birth control in the 70s and now we find out they cause harm. Who knows if that's not the case with BP meds too. Big pharma has too much control over our lives.
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If elders are given strong blood pressure meds (stronger than they need) they are apt to hallucinate. Changing my mom's bp meds reduced her hallucinations by 90%. They are at least 5 different types of Blood pressure medications. They ARE NOT all the same.
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Abby33,

I recommend you take your mom to the doctor right away. I do not know the full symptoms of dementia, but halucinations is a stage of Alzheimer's and I know some individuals can move from dementia to Alzheimer's.

I encourage you to reach out to a doctor to have your mom checked. My mom is on blood pressure medicines and we have no issues like that at all.

Good luck!
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Just recently there was a story on ABC News about how blood pressure meds can reduce the risk of developing dementia.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Alzheimers/blood-pressure-drugs-lower-dementia-risk/story?id=18160758

My mother that lives with Alzheimer's type dementia hallucinates all the time. Doesn't remember the city she lives in, or that she is married. She married a high school beau just six years ago, but when she does remember she is married she thinks it has been since they were young. She does not remember my dad, that passed away 45 years ago, very often.
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I don't really know about heart medications and their effect on dementia, but one thing you may want to rule out as a possible cause for hallucinations is a urinary tract infection. There's a very informative article on UTIs on this website "Urinary tract infections in the elderly." Although the connection between the medication and hallucinations seems a more likely cause in your case, UTIs are worth consideration anytime there is a sudden change in your elderly loved ones' mental status.
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I hope you have taken your mom to be examined by a physician. One additional thought: Antihypertensives often include diuretics which could possibly result in fluid and electrolyte imbalances. Not always, but too often (especially when it concerns your LO) the results of these imbalances include significant effects like confusion, hypotension, and several other things which can in turn increase one's falls risk, affect other organs, etc., etc.. So, it's a serious issue. But, it is possible that the dosage just needs to be adjusted. If so, an adjustment could soon help her return to her prior state.
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Abby333, the article that mbost310 is speaking of above is attached here.

https://www.agingcare.com/articles/urinary-tract-infections-elderly-146026.htm

The AgingCare.com Team
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Merrilou....re statin and memory loss, was it specific to the elderly in some part of article? I would love to take my mom off statins. I am with you re what good is it if it is compromising your quality of life? At 83 I think that is prime issue!
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But, taking off statins, the risk of stroke would increase, resulting possibly in more memory loss.
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I read fairly dense scientific paper last night on Am Heart Assoc site....basically summarizing 5or6global studies of a large sample of elderly men and women. In sum, seemed to say for someone like my mom, statins are appropriate for reduction of HA. But it also said treatment with statin classified aggressive vs moderate ( type of statin, dose) did not show advantage one over the other. My mom is on an aggressive protocol, so maybe the doc will switch to lesser dose, different statin. Article also discussed quality of life issues, life expectancy based on current age in making choice to take drug. I read that the author works as consultant for the major Pharmas of statins, so kind of shot credibility.....sz
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