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She's on Xanax & Seroquel since mid-Sep. It's a daily event now and I feel like I'm losing my mind. She's flashing back to two different houses from her childhood, (also located in S. Philly) and wants to go NOW! I had to physically stop her Saturday because it was too late to go out. I have taken her out as a last resort but don't like doing it. Have tried calling siblings to interrupt the behavior but that isn't always an option.On Xanax & Seroquel since mid-Sep Many thanks for your help! Donna

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It is heartbreaking. Maybe she would take a hug from one of them, 'via' you. That way you get to share some affection. Ask what 'they' will do when she gets there, and talk about that. Use Improv. Get into her world. It can be silly, but also can be very effective. My husband told me there was a monkey outside in the backyard. Instead of telling him there aren't monkeys in the wild in New England, I told him he should go right out and check. He went right out and took a look. It was a bunch of leaves in a tree. He came back to tell me it wasn't a monkey after all. Thank goodness! Hang in there donnajeane.
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This is all trial & error. You have to more or less guess at what will be the calming answer on a day by day basis. When you think you found gold, everything changes and you're back to square one.

Mom would get all kinds of riled up and threaten to call a cab and have it take her to the airport. She was going to call the newspaper and governor because we won't let her go home. And on in that vein. It was very theatrical.

If I couldn't distract/derail her, I started treating it like a temper tantrum and giving it no response whatsoever. "If you're going to act like this, I'm going home. This is not fun for me to be around you like this."

Or, "I have upset you and I am very sorry. I'll come back another time when you feel better."

"You seem upset. I'm sorry mom." And just leave it at that.

Remember, you are now in charge. I had to learn a whole new way to interacting with mom, which was hard to do. I had to learn a whole new way of communicating with her too. There are no classes for this unfortunately.
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Seroquel should be at it's "steady state" in two days. It's not like the SSRI or
SSNI antidepressants which take several weeks to kick in.

Seroquel (which is an antipsychotic) did nothing for my mom's sundowning. Eventually, the geriatric psych came to a combo of Remeron, Lexapro and a tiny dose of klonopin. Medicating agitation in dementia patients is very much trial and error, as you say. Don't give up!
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You don't need to take her anywhere.

When my mom did this, and got SUPER agitated about it, I told her she had to have the doctor's permission to go, and we didn't have it today. We'd have to ask tomorrow. (wink wink). No matter how many times I said this, it was as if I just said it the first time.

My mom wanted to go to her childhood home (demolished), the house she lived in as a new bride (demolished), the house I grew up in (sold). All of these properties are 1800 miles away, not exactly across town! She wanted to see her grandmother who has been dead for decades.

Going "home" is not literal. It's a strong desire to return to a time when things were good. The trip and the realization that nothing there is as it used to be can be awfully traumatic and serve no real purpose. We don't need to validate reality when the reality is that all the things in memory are no longer there.
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A big THANK YOU to everyone who took time to post. I truly appreciate your support and caring!

Gladimhere, you asked about the Seroquel dose -- it was prescribed mid-afternoon and bedtime (.25 mg). I have been giving it around 3pm since that seems to be the Sundowner's appearance time. I also gave my mom her .5, of xanax @1pm today to see if that lessens the agitation.

Hi, sandwich42 . . . I have pulled out "the doctor said . . . " quite a few times with mixed results. Sometimes she gets to punching the chair arm (once while on the ph0ne with my sister who was trying to tell her to stay inside with me), whereupon I've caved and took her out for a quick walk. If it's nice out and daytime, OK, but that's not always the case.

Hi, LadeeC . . . I, too, have to stop trying to convince mom that her parents are gone. There's a part of my brain which keeps fighting to remain 'logical,' since I've been that way from a very young age. It's not serving me in this situation, that's for darn sure!

Hi! Amy . . . Thanks for posting. Just loved, "maintain empthy; don't cave into sympathy." Truly enlightening! Blessings to you and yours!

I do need to have some snappy combacks memorized for when Sundowner's hits, and I've made notes from all of your messages about projects to distract my mom. Will be asking the doc about the current medicine protocol.

Again, everyone, you have helped me more than you'll ever know. Blessings & hugs to all! Donna
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Hahaaa that's awesome yogagirl. My dad (pre-dementia) was the wittiest man I've ever known and I mean that seriously. He had a natural gift of humor and could make people laugh at the most mundane things. Recently, I was taking him to a doctors appointment and there was a dead skunk in the road, it was messy to say the least so I said, "Oh dear" as I careened the car around it and for a split second my dad was himself again and he said, "No Amy that's not a deer, that's a skunk." :-)
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A couple of my other favorite distraction techniques:

"Let's wait until after we finish the laundry [statement, not question - important distinction. Giving choices isn't always the most useful option] Would you mind helping? I've got all these washclothes I need folded." (And if I don't have any fresh from the laundry - a rarity, actually - I've been known to grab a stack of them and UNfold them, just to give her something to do.)

She loves brushing my hair. "Be right back .. need to finish the dishes and when I'm done, I'd love for you to brush my hair." (be right back - a delay tactic that often helps disperse the anxiety, and brushing hair is really relaxing - for both of us). And then I make sure to *immediately* suggest bedtime (or other activity, depending on the time of day), "It's bedtime, let's go brush our teeth and stuff."

As caregivers we end up having to be realllllly creative with solutions. Good luck with finding your own!!

LadeeC
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Thanks, Kathleen . . . I will try those cues you mentioned. I showed her a pic of her mom because sometimes she says 'they' are waiting for her. Problem is, a lot of what my mom is saying is gibberish, so I can't make sense of most of it. It's heartbreaking.
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"Oh Mom, I don't blame you for wanting to go to Elm street. That is a very happy location. But I can't take you today, I'm sorry. I have to wait for an important phone call. Let me make a fresh pot of coffee and take some cookies out of the freezer, and we can sit and talk on the porch for a while."

"The Rock Street House is something special, isn't it? Did you know the roads are all torn up on that side of town while they are putting in new sewers? I don't think we could get very close now. They'll be done in about a week, I think. Would you like to take a little drive over to the park instead, this afternoon? I can pack us a little snack to eat there."

Acknowledge that you know she wants to go there, "explain" why you can't right now, distract with some other activity.

If she has only been on the new drugs two or three weeks, that may not be long enough for them to reach a therapeutic level. It may be too soon to think about adjustments, but do discuss this with the prescribing doctor.

I am curious. When you do take her out, what do you do? Drive past those houses? What is her reaction? Does that calm her?

My heart goes out to you. I remember lots of "I want to go home" episodes when I felt so helpless.
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Edna started wanting to go home, that Daddy was waiting for her. For a while, I endured telling her, again and again, that Daddy had died. It was upsetting for both of us. Finally, I started suggesting she look around the room and give me the names of things. For her, sometimes it means that she really wants to go to bed or the bathroom. Different stages of dementia, I imagine. When she really gets on a roll about Daddy, I give her a hand held mirror and ask who's in the mirror. After a few moments of lack of recognition, it finally sinks in and she laughs when I ask how old she is. That's usually enough of a distraction. On really bad nights, I can give her a tylenol PM and she gets sleepy enough that she forgets.

She's been on Celexa (Citalopram) for about 10 years. Our visiting doctors wanted to take her off it, because of her age and we all went, "are you KIDDING??" She's happy, she's 92, and if it means her liver or kidneys suffer, we'll work on THAT.

LadeeC
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