Hi all,
New here and this is my first post. I hope you and your families are all well.
My dad (78) got diagnosed with PD nearly 2 years ago. It was very aggressive at the start and knocked him and us all for six.
The medication has been amazing and he’s worked really hard on accepting it and doing as much as he can.
The last few months have been very challenging. He crashed his car and wrote it off and has been having a lot of falls.
A couple of months ago he started showing extreme symptoms of what we assumed to be dementia which seemed to get worse every day. Hallucinations, severe confusion about where he lived, thinking it was 1974 etc.
I took him to see the PD consultant and he removed 2 medication a which were tmazipan and requip which does seem to have improved things.
He’s had a CT scan and he’s had a memory tested and we’re awaiting the results. The initial memory test was before his medication was removed and he really struggled, unable to answer anything. The second test was after the medication was removed and I thought he did quite well.
Reason for the post is to ask if anyone has had similar experience. I’m wondering if the medication was the issue or he has dementia and he’s just having a good period.
Welcome to our community forum. We’re very sorry to hear your father is dealing with these challenges. It is extremely difficult sometimes to differentiate between Parkinson’s symptoms and medication-related changes. Keeping in touch with your dad’s medical team and/or Parkinson’s nurse is essential, of course, but we also welcome you to reach out to our helpline team, as they have many ways they can assist, some of which may surprise you. Do contact them on 0808 800 0303 as you like.
Yes it is very possible the medication was a major cause of his problems.
As you say, once two of the medications were removed that seemed to make a big difference.
Remember it takes a few days for the medication to be totally expelled from the body and there will still be sides effects because of that.
I was given a medication which was absolutely disgusting.
Within a day or so, I found I could not find words, I felt woozy a lot of the time and found it difficult to have coherent thoughts.
After three day I threw the medication away and two days later I was almost back to normal.
Whether that was a good or bad thing I and my wife seem to have differing opinions.
Hi , my wife has had PD for 18 years is having the same sort of issues as in bad hallucinations , this was put down to a patch she was wearing and an APOgo pen .
She had a memory test and it come back a 45% , but every day is different as in medication (Stanek 100) could make her on or off , god day bad day and unfortunately she still has hallucinations . So really a memory test depends on that person at that time eg ON or OFF
So is this dementia, lack of medication, we don’t know , all I know she has very good hours and bad hours.
And unfortunately lack of help from PD nurses , consultant doesn’t help with this matter , nor does being told that this medication for memory : works for everyone …
Medication can take up to a week to get in to the body , that’s if you don’t have any side effects … And it seems like my wife has a lot of side effects with a lot of the medication, which make her worse…
I go round in circles every day
We’re sorry to hear this, Polomint. We’d suggest you reach out to our helpline when you can. It’s free and confidential and you might be surprised at the extent to which they can help. Find them on 0808 800 0303, and have a look at these other support services, as well: Support for you | Parkinson's UK.
