's Mom

[Guest guest]

Thank you for your responses... To answer/respond:

* My mother turned 74 this past November

* - same with my mother. In the early days she would have good days and

bad days. Always a good day when we went to the doctor's office. Like we're

making all our stories up! The doctors never saw what we saw. That's why we

agreed to her going to that hospital in October for observation. Early on (year

or 2 ago) we felt my mother was " faking " to get attention.

* To my knowledge, she was never given Haldol or Ativan (but she spent 3 weeks

in a hospital for observation, they may have tried those meds before she was

finally given Risperadone, Remiron, and Razadyne)

* On Monday, I'll discuss this LBD possibility. The reason I'm not satisfied

with her diagnosis of Vascular Dementia is b/c she was diagnosed w/ a number of

different things - the latest being VaD and Binswenger's Disease; but even that

didn't satisfy her neurologist, he did a spinal tap on her in November b/c my

mother seems to be the medical mystery - of course the spinal tap turned out to

be inconclusive b/c they didn't have enough spinal fluid for the test (we won't

be putting her through that again); there are a couple of symptoms of VaD that

she doesn't have while she has all the symptoms of LBD; the rapidity of her

disease - most others have been gradual, slow progression while my mother

spiraled from her condo in July to a NH in November. And with VaD it's usually a

decline and leveling off and then a decline again - like steps going down - not

my mother she's been spiraling down with no plateaus reached...

* I'm sure the answer to the VaD vs. LBD is the issue with white matter. But I

read this too:

A more common diagnostic error is to attribute the clinical features of DLB

to cerebral vascular disease such as multi-infarct dementia or Binswanger's

disease.

CT or MR imaging frequently reveal mild and essentially incidental vascular

disease which can lure the clinical towards a diagnosis of multi-infarct

dementia.

CT or MR imaging often show diffuse subcortical white matter changes in

degenerative diseases such as DLB, and these can be so striking as to lead to a

radiological diagnosis of Binswanger's disease.

Question - what are the white matter findings in your loved ones? Are there

similarities?

* I'll take your advice and print the brochure and the medication files from

this board for the appointment. I feel an anti-depressant medication is

necesarry for her and some form of medication for her Parkinsons-like symptoms

would be beneficial. I'm glad she's on one drug that your LO's are on -

Seroquil.

Thanks again!

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