My father has dementia and living in a memory care facility for almost 4 years. His health is good and no other diseases other than the memory loss. Up until about 6 weeks ago he's been easy going. But the last 6 weeks have been awful. He is very aggressive, pulls the caregivers's hair, he is refusing care, throwing all his pictures and nick nacks off the wall and breaking them. This weekend he was found breaking all his cd's. He cut himself pretty bad with a broken cd. His provider has put him on Risperidone and Seroquel for this aggression..Is this just a phase or another phase of his dementia?
If it is a change in mental status with no UTI then yes it is just an advancement of the dementia. It is common for people with dementia to get angry, lash out aggressively even violently. Since he is already in memory care, it's likely they already know how to handle these symptoms. They normal way to handle these symptoms is to add medications to treat anxiety which it seems they have done. They do take some time to take effect (up to 3 months in some patients) so you may have to be patient and make sure that all the staff knows that they need more than one aide to help him in case he acts out.
Angel