Can quetiapine fumarate (25 mg) work for an 87 y/o who has delusions and hallucinations?

1-2 mg is an extremely small dose. Mom's geriatrician has some dementia patients on up to 400 mg a day. Are you sure, helpermom that it isn't 1/2 to 2 pills? It does not come is a pill form in less than 25mg. Check out the website rxlist.

Rico, what is your mother's underlying condition? Is she bi-polar? Does she have dementia? How long has she been on Quetiapine? What dose? What does the prescribing doctor say about this reaction?

I learned to give Quetiapine to my husband in the bedroom, because it did put him to sleep within 20 minutes. But that sleepiness effect wore off after a few hours while the benefits lasted all day. It was a great drug for us. But it doesn't sound so good for your Mom. Either the dose needs adjusting or she needs a different drug.

Discuss this with her doctor!

Yes quitapine may be helpful. But finding the right drug is sometimes trial and error.

Quetiapine fumarate can be extremely helpful for this. However 25mg seems like a very high dose for use in the elderly. My dad is on 1mg, after his doctor recommended 1/2-2mg as an acceptable range. His doctor is a geriatric psychiatrist, and they often will prescribe much lower doses for the elderly than would normally be prescribed for someone younger, because of the way the body of an elderly person processes drugs. If your mom's insurance will let you switch to a different psychiatrist, try to find a geriatric psychiatrist (assuming the one she's already seeing isn't a geriatric specialist). This sounds like a very difficult situation for your family. Wishing you well.

By the way Gladimhere ..I was told that the Med's lowest dosage was 25..Not 12.5....Interesting.....I will call the Pharmacy again tomorrow!
Thanks.....

The smallest dosage it comes in is 25 mg. For about nine months I was cutting those tiny pills in half. Get a pill cutter at the pharmacy and try a lower dosage if ok with the doctor. That will probably help and I would not switch to another drug until you give the 12.5 mg for awhile first.

I think what Veronica91 says is true about drugs in general, but it really seems to apply to Seroquel very strongly! In my local support group nearly all of us tried it. When it works it is a "miracle drug." When it doesn't work it can make things worse. Fortunately the bad side effects are not permanent.

Mom had very infrequent hallucinations. Has your mom been checked for a urinary tract infection? Those can cause all sorts of symptoms! How much QF is she taking, how many times a day? It did not knock my mom out like Jeanne experienced, but did make her sleep well.

gladimhere, I am so thankful for Coy's doctor's attitude and policies. When we started with him (researcher/neurologist at Mayo Clinic) he was encouraging that although there isn't a cure there are many things to try, to control symptoms. He would only work on ONE symptom at a time, and only when that treatment had stabilized would he move on to another. He asked us which symptom was most bothersome and that we wanted to start with. (We chose sleeping through the night.) He never introduced more than one drug at a time. So putting the whole drug cocktail together took months ... but it worked for years once we got it right.

All drugs have the possibility of working differently in different people. The brain damage involved in different kinds of dementia make individual reactions more pronounced. Each drug needs to be tried and observed. Starting multiple drugs at once for a dementia patient is NOT a good idea!

It is a "guessing game" and there is lots of "trial and error" -- and this needs to be in hands of someone who knows what he/she is doing!

Jeanne, I could not agree more! A geriatrician, at a minimum! Neurologists, geriatric psychiatrists, I tried everything to try to help my mom. Now sib is in charge, I have nothing to do with it, not even updated of changes. Dementia destroys not only the brain, but the families of those with this horrid disease.