My mother was diagnosed with Parkinson's in February and is on Co-Careldopa (Sinemet)
This has controlled her tremor, but she has experienced a few hallucinations as well.
However, over the last week or so, her state of confusion has increased greatly, and now several times she has said she does not know where she is, and when can she go home, when in fact she is at home. Or she will pick up something and say "I've got one of those", without connecting the fact that she is at home - so recognised the object but is so disoriented that she can't connect it with home.
We have a doctor's visit scheduled for today to see if this is being caused by an infection, or whether it is a symptom of Parkinson's dementia.
Has anyone come across that type of symptom before? The Parkinson's nurse wants to put her on Rivastigmine - again - does anyone have experience of this drug, and can it improve confusion?
I hope that the visit to the GP was helpful and that her symptoms were due to an UTI.
My OH was on Rivastigmine for a while but that could only be prescribed by the memory clinic here and NOT a Parkinsons nurse.
Sadly it did nothing for OH's memory problems and, after an awful reaction, jaundice, they were taken off it. Now on Memantine but that is also not doing much.
Thanks for the reply. Sorry it didn't work for your OH.
Unfortunately it was all clear for UTI or other infections. They ordered a home visit from the GP to rule out other infections. I briefed the GP quite clearly about her extreme confusion and also said that she may be in a period of lucidity when the GP visits and won't remember the confusion. As luck would have it she was lucid when the GP visited, so the GP reported back to us that there was nothing wrong with her infectionwise, and was just showing the normal signs of ageing!!!
So as you can imagine, my wife and I are tearing our hair out.
