Ativan and confusion

mrszuhwiggins

My Mom has had dementia for 13 years and is definitely declining, but can typically understand what is happening and can respond appropriately. She can not remember discussions that happened 5 minutes ago, but in the moment is usually lucid. She recently moved from AL to Memory Care, and in doing so, had to change communities, so there has been a lot of change. She's had a few bouts of "Let me out of here" and banging on the doors to get out as she's never been in a locked facility before. Today I was called over as she was very agitated. The nurse gave her Ativan, and it seemed to calm her down. I left after staying with her for 45 minutes and the moment seemed to pass. I went back later in the day to check on her and she was standing up crying. When I spoke with the new nurse on duty, he told me he gave her Ativan to help her calm down. I told him that I thought her PRN script for Ativan was once every 8 hours as needed and only about 3.5 hours had passed from the first dose. When I got her to her room, she was speaking gibberish. She couldn't form a logical sentence and was REALLY confused. Could Ativan being given twice in a shorter period of time cause that kind of confusion?

Dio

I would ask the doctor. It depends on the dosage of her Ativan among other things. But every patient reacts differently to medications. My DH is on 1mg Ativan and his prescription says he can take up to 6mg per day for agitation, although he has never needed more than an extra dose. But sometimes nothing seems to work until he settles down on his own.

M1

Welcome to the forum. What Dio said is accurate--every person's response is different. It's worth checking and being sure you know what medications are available for "as needed" (also called prn) use. Sometimes meds get changed/added and the family is not notified--shouldn't happen, but it does, especially in this climate of short staffing and overwork that most AL/MC facilities are dealing with.

You probably won't get a definitive answer on whether the Ativan did this, you'll just have to watch and she if she comes back out of it. But the short answer is yes, any drug can do this, especially in the elderly.

I hope she gets adjusted soon. It can be a long road--my partner has been in MC for over a year and is still not content, probably will never be. So much depends on the underlying personality.

Keep us posted on how she does. This community has been a very supportive place for me and many others, hope it will prove so for you, too.

mrszuhwiggins

Thank you so much. It has been extremely difficult. She has been living with this horrible disease for 13 years. She was understandably confused as to the change in where she was living, and had a few outbursts trying to get out of the locked facility. But after the Ativan double dose, she was not capable of forming an intelligible sentence. She seems better this morning, so I am going to talk to them about only using the Ativan if they absolutely have to, and maybe see if there is any other medication that they could substitute as a PRN. I really do appreciate the support. I have been a member of this forum since 2010 and have read through countless posts, but this is the first time I am posting myself, and I have the feeling I may be doing so more frequently. :(

jfkoc

Just an FYI....my husband hada paradoxical reaction to Ativan which, it seems, is a known reaction. It took only 1 dose!