Originally Posted by efayard
I ditto all the authors already mentioned. If you like romance, Robyn Carr has a series-- Virgin River-- that's pretty good. I lost my mom in August. She had been between the hospital and nursing home since April. In the beginning she went through an episode of dementia which the doctor said was hospital induced psychosis. She didn't know where she was and barely knew me and my sisters. I believe it was the drugs they were giving her supposedly for anxiety and to sleep. She got better after awhile and was more like herself. It was really sad seeing her go through this. She was 92 and lived a healthy life until this episode. You're in my prayers. I know you're going through a rough time.
My husband's dementia has been diagnosed as Lewy Body Dementia. The neurologist and neuropsychologist both agreed mainly because of the hallucinations. Apparently, hallucinations are the defining criteria for LBD. I was told that is very under-diagnosed and is mistaken for Alzheimer's. There is a lot of information available on the internet. I understand exactly what you are dealing with and will keep you in my prayers, also.
Thank you so much for your kind words. My mom is 79 years old and has been struggling with this for almost two years. It is more of a psychosis instead of dementia. She has both her long and short term memory, but she has hallucinations. Some times she thinks that I'm her older sister and she thinks my brother is our dad. Some of the things she says are just precious, for instance, I recently had a birthday and the entire family gathered at her house. I brought a lemon meringue pie and she told everyone they had to try a piece of the pie because she made it from scratch from lemons she picked off a tree in her backyard! Other times she has horrible hallucinations, seeing snakes, spiders and other frightening things in her home. She does take routine medications to help with the hallucinations, but there are occasional times when the medications don't seem to help. She has more good days than bad, thank goodness. She has always been such a loving and gentle person and would do anything to help anyone that needed it. It's hard to see her change so much.