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Mom has been diagnosed with anxiety and moderate dementia as well as depression. We have taken her to a psychiatrist and she is on Lexapro. We feel as though a psychologist might be best at this time. We are having a hard time finding one in our area that would not only specialize in geriatics but possibly take medicare.

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Let me share what was going on with my mom a few years ago. She started "awfulizing" everything that happened; snowstorms, everything on the news, you name it. We kept getting phone calls to come fix things, rescue, etc. She wouldn't go out. EVENTUALLY, getting her into an Independent Living facility and on anti anxiety and eventually antidepressants helped, BUT, it turned out that the "I don't want to go out" was because she was having fecal incontience, meaning that she was getting blocked up and then having liquid stools leak out around the blockage. this was because she was using both a fiber supplement and immodium and wasn't able to figure out how to regulate her use of either. This eventually landed her the hospital, it got figured out and we realized that there had been a sudden cogntiive decline that we were not aware of.

I still think that a geriatric psychiatric social worker would be a better bet than a psychologist, for a variety of reasons.
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I should say it is more of the beginning of dementia-not moderate.
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We are thinking of putting her on Clonipan
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My mom had dementia that progressed as it usually does. She was so forgetful, any ongoing psychological counseling was useless. She had one session with a therapist but didn't remember it, so it was of no help. She was on Lexapro. I don't know if it did much good. Ask your mom's doctor about Ativan for the anxiety.
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She has a lot of anger and frustration but most importantly she is extremely anxious. To the point where is becoming agorphobic. She just started meds about 3 weeks ago so not sure they have kicked in yet. We just thought if she had someone to talk to that it would help
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What are you hoping to accomplish with a psychologist at this point? If mom has moderate dementia, her brain is really no longer plastic enough to do the learning that therapy requires. Meds are very much your best option.

Does mom want to "talk to some one"? A geriatric social worker might be the best person to retain for this service.
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