I am new to the forum. My wife's mental health has been declining over the past ten plus years following a series of small strokes. She has a family history of dementia in her mother and grandmother. We now live in an independent living community which she requested. She is exhibiting greater loss of short term memory and becoming increasingly belligerent. She is increasingly delusional and angry but cant identify what I can do to make her happy. Are there any memory medications that could help? Can anyone offer advice / help in how to handle her?
This is for your wife's medical team. If she will not see her physician it is time for you to speak with him about the ways in which you can get her in for testing. You need to know if this is depression due to her strokes or if she is having dementia from her strokes. If so, independent living may not be good enough soon. So you need to know, in short, what you are dealing with.
I am glad you are here and welcome you to the Forum. I wish it was under happier circumstances.
Even if she knew or you knew what she wanted there would still be the delusions, the anger, frustration.
Part of it might be her "knowing" that something is wrong and there is nothing that can be done.
There are medications that can (or should) help slow down the progression of dementia.
With Vascular dementia the damage will keep occurring with each mini stroke she has. And you may not know when she has one. It might be that one day she can zipper a jacket and the next day she can't. One day she can walk, the next day she can't.
There are medications that can help with the anger, delusions, frustration, anxiety but as with all medications there are risks. She may become more of a fall risk.
If your Independent Living Community also has Assisted Living AND memory Care you might want to begin exploring those 2 stages of living.
You may not need AL but you may need the help that AL can provide when you are trying to care for her.
And knowing when you can no longer care for her safely even with the help of the AL staff that is when you need to consider Memory Care.
And there really isn't anything you can do "to make her happy" as her brain is now permanently broken, other than perhaps have her doctor put her on a antidepressant.
There is no medication to help with her memory(sadly) and any of the so called dementia medications, if they do work, work only for about 6 months or so to help slow the progression.
The fact that your wife has had several strokes means that sadly she is at a very high risk for dementia, and often it's vascular dementia. And obviously your wife is already showing many of the signs of dementia, which could go on for quite a while yet, although if she has vascular dementia which is the most aggressive of all the dementias the life expectancy is only 5 years, unlike Alzheimer's which can go on for 20+ years.
I wish you well as you travel this very difficult journey with your wife.