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My 91 year old Mom is in the middle stage of dementia. She lives with me and I'm her sole caregiver. She recently started having extreme mood swings that is hard to deal with. She will go from total depression where is is unable to move to staying up all night cleaning her room. Is this related to the dementia and how do I handle this? Any advice is appreciated.

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Whenever there is a sudden behavioral change the first thing most of us on the forum recommend, and from hard experience, is to be certain to get a urine specimen off for testing. Bladder infections, UTIs, can have a profound change on the mentation, one with rapid onset, and often some outbursts that are unusual for the person. So be certain all goes well with the waterworks.
Then you are on to watching, keeping a kind of diary of things that are unusual or more disturbing both to you and to your Mom. You may be looking at a need for medication from a good doctor, but will need the evidence to present about the changes you are seeing.
Good luck.
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bethny58 Aug 2020
That's great advice. Thank you!
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A good geri-psych eval is the start. There are probably meds she can take to help this. I imagine this is awful for both of you.

Sooner you get this checked out, the better. I know with COVID they aren't seeing a lot of patients 'in house' but they bend the rules a little for special cases.

Good Luck.
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bethny58 Aug 2020
Thank you! I will call her doctor
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