My father with stage 5 Parkinson’s has experienced the following:
January gradual building up over week. Starting talking in sleep and slight movements. Progressively worse. Then seeing things during day. Taking into hospital. Got to stage where he was constantly thinking he was falling every minute and screaming in fear with muscles contracting in whole body making movement he normally could not make. Eventually after 8 hrs where there was no gap between this they sedated him. The give him the max for his age and he ended up being unconscious for 2 days. They thought this might be linked to temporary kidney damage and dehydration at the time. A delirium He came around completely and was back to normal.
He then went to a different section for recovery and rehabilitation. For 3 week fine and starting to build strength again. Then same cycle started again. They tried a new drug at night to address him seeing things and moving in sleep (at one point he was waking in sleep). Had to fight for doctors to do blood and urine tests as they just said it was his PD. Nothing was found this time. This all ended in the same outcome. Constantly thinking he is falling and screaming for nearly a day with frequency increasing etc. Eventually they sedated, after we complained numerous times, with a much lower dose than last time. This reduced it a bit for about 2 hours with a bit less frequency but then it started to build up again. He got his normal medication 6 hours later including the new one (10pm). Over the next 3 hours frequency slowly decreased. I then left as I was tired so uncertain what happen. Nurse said he settled the rest of the night and had a good sleep The next day they had a problem waking him to give his medication. Was sleeping the rest of the day. Next day had hrs where awake and everything back to his normal state. Next day completely back to his normal state. No visible cognitive issues and only his usual speech issue.
We have now been told by consultant that he is in the stages of dying and that these occurrences are caused by a type of Alzheimer’s that is intermittent. Saying he has about a month left. I cannot find anywhere on the Internet any details of this. As a family we are confused as he is normal now (in terms of how he was before January).
Has anyone ever experienced or heard of this type of thing.