Antipsychotic meds (Seroquel)

Caring62

My ADLO (Mom) takes multiple meds (Citalopram, Memantine, Donepezil), some for many years.  She is in her middle stages and her confusion, aggitation, anger and aggressive verbal behavior with AL staff and family is growing.  Her PCP wants to begin Mom on Seroquel 25mg @ night, with another 25mg available daily.

As I read about antipsychotic meds for AD I am a bit leary.  We need to do something to help her as Mom is so upset much of the time now.  Does anyone have experience with these?

Thanks    

M1

Definitely worth a try.  25 mg even twice daily is a very low dose.  She will sleep better and I suspect you will see improved behavior pretty quickly.  There are lots of similar threads, there are many here who use it (my partner included, 25 mg at bedtime has improved sleep enormously and decreased agitation.  No side effects at all)

Just Ro

25 mg Seroquel helped my husband immensely for about 5 months.  He started to have breakthrough bad behaviors about the middle of August and med was increased to 25 mg twice a day.  Helped again, but I believe we now need another increase.  Definitely worth a try as it seems to keep the anger and agitation under control for my DH. No bad side effects that I can see.

Hope street

Seroquel has worked well for my Mom.  I have always gone for the least amount needed to hep with the anxiety and agitation.  It took awhile to figure the best times of the day to give it to her. I started with 25 mg at night for sleep.  The another 25 was added a few months later given at my discretion. I found it worked best at first signs of anxiety like hand wringing or “I want to go home” talk. ( Weeks of trying distraction and redirection were fruitless and I tried everything.). Recently I was give approval for 75 mg a day. Two at night. One at midday.

I was so scared at first, back in April, to give her something called an antipsychotic. I felt I must be at fault for not being able to soothe her without drugs. But her delusions and panic were keeping her from sleeping or eating. And the seroquel is so much better than the lorazepam that we tried which actually caused more agitation and unsteadiness.

jfkoc

Seroquel is used quite a bit for AD but as with all drugs and OTC meds please become familiar with it, it's side effects and any interactions. I use drugs.com but there are other sites online.

LJS45

My mom is on 50 mg in the am and 50 mg in the pm. It was prescribed when she was constantly picking at her arms to the point of infections. She has not picked since. We want to decrease her morning dose but we are getting ready to move her from memory care to a residential care facility in 2 weeks and want to wait until she settles in there. It does make her very sleepy.

EJ97

My mom was not sleeping which caused more agitation and confusion during the day.  She was prescribed a very low dose of Seroquel that she was given in the evening and it helped a lot. She was eventually taken off of it (after about a year and a half) and did well without it. My mom was not on any other meds for mood or behavior so I'm not sure about combining the Seroquel with other meds.

NLS-SW

We have had good luck with it.  We just do a round right before bedtime.  When we looked at stopping it (one doctor thought it was not good for her to have it), she would not sleep and would hear/see things not there thru the night.  Next day grumpy/confused/angry.  When we just do the dose at night, she gets a good night sleep and is fine the next day.  It is good to hear others success with twice a day doses, we are not there yet.  If you are apprehensive about it, try just a pm dose and see how they are the next day.