Confused between all the doctors' opinions. Did any of you try a good calming medication that is suitable for the elderly?

I suggest finding a good Naturopath doctor. My daughter lived in CA when my mother was in stage 3 Lewy Body dementia. Grandmama, my mother, moved into an asst living facility close to her. My daughter hooked Grandmama up with a great Naturopath who helped wean her off all meds and onto supplements. The head nurse at her facility was open to letting us try prescribed medical canibas. Canibas, in the correct form, gave my mother a longer quality life. If you live where medical canibas is legal, I highly recommend trying it, but find a knowledgeable source. Grandmama has since moved back to Texas near me. So, now we had to turn to CBD. What we have found is that the CBD tincture needs to be alcohol based because it crosses the brain barrier. I’m not a specialist but that is the explanation I received when I tried the oil based tincture without results. Grandmama is entering her final stage of Lewy Body but I feel that the change from psych meds to supplements and canibas products has given us time with her that is priceless. It’s still been hard, of course, but her disease has been ‘manageable’ for 10 years now. She has just now become combative and that just happened after her 2 and a half month stint in a memory center (but that’s a whole other story!) I hope this helps. It’s emotionally exhausting to not know what to do and I’ve found that even good reputable doctors just don’t get it. My prayers are with you.

The more doctors you see, the more prescriptions your mother is going to get!

Olanzapine is used for schizophrenia or bipolar disorders........why is she taking that? Lorazepam is Ativan and used for anxiety. OCD behaviors are common with dementia.......as long as she's not harming herself or others, why are you medicating her to stop repetitive actions? Some dementia sufferers open and close doors repeatedly, pack and unpack the same bags all day long, walk the hallways, pace back and forth, rummage for hours thru drawers etc. I saw it all the time when I worked in a Memory Care Assisted Living community last year. The staff left the residents alone to their repetitive behaviors because it just goes along with the territory.

If you plan to care for your mother at home, learn all you can about dementia and watch Teepa Snow videos on YouTube, too. You may need to learn distraction techniques and behavioral modifications to rely on instead of meds. Structure is very important with dementia. A routine whereby she has activities, meals, hygiene, exercise and daily habits she can get used to. That may help her stop relying on only 2 things to keep herself occupied with. Maybe not...dementia is very tricky and very difficult to manage.

My mother has dementia and basically cannot tolerate ANY medications. Nothing works for many of the demented folks anyway, it's found, thru trial and error. Every single medication the doctor has prescribed for my mother has made her dementia dramatically worse, so it has to be discontinued. It's very frustrating, too.

Many folks have found that CBD oil works well for dementia. It didn't do squat for my mother, but hers had no THC in it which renders it pretty useless to begin with. Some swear by the Biomat mini.....infrared heating pad type thing with amethyst crystals. One poster here said it took his demented mom from being out of control to a pussy cat.

Wishing you the best of luck with a difficult situation

Stick with her geriatric psychiatrist. Psych meds take a while to get to therapeutic levels in the blood stream; it will take some time to see results. Some medications work better than others, her doctor seems to be using good meds and ones I would expect (I am an RN). He/She may adjust the dosages or switch to other medications based on how your mom's behavior responds to her medication. It takes time and there is no overnight fix.

If you are taking care of mom in your home (post implies you are), consider allowing others to help with her care so you don't get burnt out. Ask family members, friends, members of faith community and paid help to take some time with your mom daily and for longer periods weekly. Use your "off time" to make sure to meet your health needs and your soul needs for activities you enjoy with people you value.

It might help to understand that your mom's brain is broken. She can't access some neurons in her brain for most recent memories and decision-making. Other neurons seem to be connected and "firing" all the time = repetitive behaviors. As long as she can move safely, give her places she can wander until her psych doctor and you find the "sweet spot" in her medication needs. You can also try diverting her attention to other tasks: coloring, folding laundry, cleaning counters or other housework, baking with you...

To find a med that will help is often times a challenge. Seroquel worked great for my mom, but ativan had the completely opposite affect. It will be trial and error to find what will work for her.

Patience is key while finding something to work.

With medications for anxiety it is very important that the type of the Dementia is diagnosed. Some medications are contraindicated for some forms of dementia.

Oh, dear. Just as others have indicated: no exact medication works for all dementia patients. It’s all trial and error. You start with trying medications out, increasing if needed. If it makes her behavior worse, seek a different one. Keep trying until you’ve found something that works especially for your mom. During the day, Lorazepam is my mom’s go-to medication but her body can tolerate a lot, so her dosage is high. At night, trazodone and melatonin are the go-to medication. You have to try different anxiety medications to find just the right one. No doctor will give you exactly the right one but will rely on you to monitor what works best for mom. Hang in there. It takes time to find what calms and soothes your mom. Lately, people have been trying CBD oil for calming. It works in some people but not all.

You don’t want doctors stacking meds. My mom got some benzodiazepines for muscle pains and nausea, and went to the hospital and they gave her opiates and she went into respiratory failure and died. When I came home and read all the different meds’ interaction warnings, I realized what happened.

Many years before she passed, her mind just began racing like crazy. It was like she had sudden onset ADD. All over the place. Became obsessed with going to doctors and looking for anything to make her feel better. She’d had shingles, so she was on valtrex and lyrica for last 7 years. Meds for chemo related nausea...copd meds...muscle relaxers, etc...taking all those meds just created more problems. She tried antidepressants and those gave her colitis. Tried anti-anxiety to calm her thoughts and stop her fretting and wanting to see doctors. No avail. The only thing that sorta helped was cbd. She’d just be content for a little while, but it didn’t make her wobbly or high like all the “prescriptions”. Also, towards the last month of her life, we decided to allocate worry time and content time. I’d care for her during the day, call docs, eat, do meds. Then when I left, she was supposed to turn her “busyness “ off, and just be. Again, sometimes helpful, but not consistently so. Let me tell ya, my moms brain would wear out my mental energy in about an hour! Just constant questions, things she had to do (even during the beginning of the pandemic, she’d drive herself to the Walgreens-daily!) it’s exhausting and frustrating, bc they can’t just enjoy what is. I hope you find answers, but I’d look for strategies before prescriptions bc the prescriptions all come with something like dangerous interactions or making them unsteady both mentally and physically. I think docs just get tired of hearing their constant complaints so they prescribe stuff without thinking of the ramifications, like accidental overdose and the like.

I’m a caregiver and a nurse. You have some great answers.
definitely check on side effects. Lorazepam works wonders for some
CBD oil is great too.
lavender essential oil ( in defuser) camomile tea, and camomile essential oil ( in diffuser) may help with soothing and calming.

My Papa’s doctor prescribed Trazadone for his anxiety. It worked wonders. He was restless, like your Mom - never sat still, would just get to his chair and have to use the bathroom again, so off he’d go (but it was all part of the restlessness). And it was a wonder drug at night, best sleep he’d had in years!

Magnetic Resonance Imaging
One tool that is being used more frequently is magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). We don't have an exact test yet that definitively diagnoses Alzheimer's disease, but an MRI can help in a couple of different ways. It can be used to eliminate other causes for memory loss such as normal pressure hydrocephalus, a brain tumor or a stroke. Sometimes, an MRI can also find a reversible cause for cognitive decline that, with the proper treatment, can be reversed and cognitive functioning restored.2

https://www.verywellhealth.com