Hallucinations

ladysylvia

I’m new here. My spouse has been diagnosed with mild to moderate dementia. He is fairly independent; needs some supervision.
Started Zyprexa and Aricept. Problem is with hallucinations. I really don’t know what to do or how to support. I’m talking to his doctor about this; but want to reach you for suggestions.

SDianeL

there are specific meds for hallucinations. Not sure if the 2 he’s on are. Ask the doctor. It depends on the type of hallucination. Are they terrifying him? If not just acknowledge him and don’t argue. Get into his reality. When my husband had hallucinations at night I would tell him he was dreaming and to go back to sleep. It worked. If the hallucinations are bad he will need more or different meds. Read the book “The 36 Hour Day” which helped me after my husbands diagnosis.

Joe C.

As mentioned above there are several medication that can help with hallucinations & delusions. DW believed that people were coming to hurt or kill us and insist we needed to leave the house immediately at all hours of the day and night. Her doctor started her on seroquil which over the span of several week reduced and eventually eliminated the delusions.

harshedbuzz

Hi and welcome. I am sorry for your reason to be here but pleased you found this place.

A number of folks have already mentioned medication to dial hallucination down. This class of medication would be of the atypical antipsychotic; Zyprexa is of this class along with meds like Seroquel, Rexulti, Risperdal and others. If this is newly added, you may need several weeks to see real improvement. If it's been longer, you may need to increase the dose or try one of the other meds from this class.

Please don't be insulted with this next information gathering question— Are you sure he's having a hallucination vs a delusion. Sometimes people new to dementia confuse terms. A delusion is a false belief; the PWD is certain of something but isn't actually seeing, hearing or smelling whatever it is they believe.

Delusions are generally addressed with strategies like validation and/or redirection. Meds are added if the delusions are intractable or causing distress, agitation or aggression. Delusions that aren't upsetting the PWD don't really need correcting, a caregiver would join them in their reality.

Addressing hallucinations, IMO, is dependent on whether they are causing distress as well. Some hallucinations are harmless or even pleasant. Dad was happy to see old friends and family sitting or floating around in his room— I would never interfere with that. Early in the middle stages, he had a number of auditory hallucinations. A common one was hearing kids misbehaving upstairs after they should be in bed. This caused the same level of peevishness it would if he were actively parenting a young kid. Mom handled this one by leaving the room for a bit, coming back and reporting that she'd told them to settle down or they'd be in trouble. That validation and response was enough and can be used to things like people in the yard or random animals.

If the hallucinations are upsetting or could lead to an inappropriate response, it's critical to take a more robust approach. Sometimes a PWD, seemingly always men, who see neighbors doing something bad on the PWD's property and can respond in an over-the-top manner assaulting an innocent person or threatening with weapons. (Be sure you have any firearms or items that can be weaponized out of your home).

IME, the neurologist wasn't especially helpful around this sort of thing. YMMV. We took dad to an outpatient geripsych for medication management. If you DH is extremely agitated or a danger to himself or others, it would be prudent to have him transported to an ER for admission to a geripsych unit for an inpatient stay.

HB