Alzheimer's Disease Support Group

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia and characterized by progressive cognitive deterioration with declining activities of daily living and neuropsychiatric symptoms or behavioral changes. An early symptom is memory loss (amnesia), usually manifesting as minor forgetfulness that becomes pronounced with illness progression, with relative...

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Risperadal

Deborah48
Deborah48
Some caregivers in my other group have recommended this drug, Risperadal, for violent outbursts with results in a matter of days. Anyone else tried it? I think that because my husband already had PTSD and he was on several meds, one for agitation, I haven't yet experienced the out bursts that some of you are talking about. He did have outbursts when he was diagnosed with PTSD- like throwing a propane canister across the living room! He doesn't do that anymore, thank goodness!
deleted_user
deleted_user
My dad had sundowning and every evening about 6 would become terrible. Mostly upset over things he couldn't do anymore...drive, go home, etc. Risperdal helped him. The only problem we had was in the early stages when he could go out by himself, he would get vodka from a nearby liquor store and hide it. We caught on and the dr. became alarmed because he could not drink on this med (another thing we had to take away from him).
GeorgiaW
GeorgiaW
One of the things that brought my husbands AD to our attention was his violent outbursts and later hallucinations.
We started him on the aricept and namenda along with an anti-depressent which was more for sleep then his on going depression but those things were not enough and his doctor added the risperdal and it has made a tremendous difference in our lifes.
I know there has been a study saying it does not help people with AD/dementia and that study is just full of crap IMO, I've lived with the results and know if not for the risperdal and the changes it made in his behavior I would not still be able to take care of him.
I have also heard that there is a very small chance, something like a few percent, that the risperdal could actualy kill the user. That seems to scare many people away from it without them even realizing that taking tylenol regularly is more dangerous but I looked at it this way.
AD is going to kill my husband eventualy, his violent outbursts and halluncinations were going to mean he had to go into a care facility and could not stay in his home that he built and loved. There was also a good chance that trying to deal with his bizzare behavior would give me some severed health problems as there were times when I could only get a few hours sleep a day. We each have to elvauate our lives and circumstances when making these choices.