My wife and I have taken care of my 93 year old mother in our house
for 4 months. She broke her right hip 3 years ago, and after rehab
recovered enough to continue living on her own. She had mild confusion
at times, but nothing that stopped her from doing things, shopping,
etc.

She broke her left hip 5 1/2 months ago, and physically recovered to a
point, but far from where she was with the first break. She was able
to walk fine with a cane after the first break, but now has become
quite feeble and uses a walker and walks with a very slow shuffle.

She is now confused most of the time, living (in her mind) back in the
30's, and waiting for an upcoming interview for a teaching job.
(former teacher) She has had various delusions having to do with her
teaching days, and has been sundowning for some time. She has always
been a kind, gentle, person. I would walk her up the stairs to her
room at night using a gait belt, and she loved it up there. She became
accustomed to using a porta-potti and things went well until she
started waking up at night. One time she was looking for a needle in
her bed as she had been sewing for the "little girl" and dropped it.
She wasn't going to go back to bed until we found it, and became
aggitated. (as I did myself) She often talks about the little girl or
the little boy in the bed.

My wife and I have managed well with her. We have deer that come daily
to feed out back (live in the woods), and turkeys, and she gets very
excited when seeing them. We also have 3 large dogs that love her to
death and she gets very content petting them.

The problem is that she has so many different reasons for the
dementias that the doctor is pretty much at a loss as to how to treat
it. She has diabetes, and vascular problems, and it has just been
confirmed by cat scan that she has cerebral arterialschlerosis, and
has suffered mini-strokes.

She's being treated with a small dose of Aricept (0.5mg), and a small
dose of Risperdal (.25mg). It has done nothing for the confusion and
from everything we have read, she will never improve.

The biggest (and latest) problem is aggitation, aggression,
argumentive behavior. She never was like that in her life and of
course it's related to the dementia(s).

We want to continue to care for her, and I hate to use the term
"chemical sedative", but is there something that will calm her in
times like that?  I know they do it in the nursing homes.

She is currently hospitalized for pleural effusion, a bladder
infection, and a diabetic ulcer on her foot that came on the same day
she saw her doctor. Amazing how fast it grew. She also has COPD and
CHF. She is also on oxygen and constantly removes her cannula. She is
put to bed with it on and I've found it in many different places in
the morning, including the porta-potti. They discovered the
arterialschlerosis when they did the CAT scan to try to discover the
reason for her sudden changes. Turns out it was most likely
mini-strokes.

So, getting back to the dire question: is there something that she can
be given to calm her significantly when needed? I don't want to use
the word sedate.. but I guess it fits. We have Lorazapam .5mg that we
give her every afternoon and I see no change. She got to kicking in
the hospital because one of the nurses agitated her and they ended up
giving her a shot of Haldol, which had no effect whatsoever. They
called me at 11pm to ask if I would make the 1 hour drive to the
hospital to try to calm her. I declined.

Anyway, been lurking a long time and felt it was time to throw some
info/questions at the group.

Dave

Her long-time doctor