OMG. Thanks for posting this. We have a friend who was diagnosed with dementia and put on an an anti-psychotic. We had a feeling something wasn’t right. He started developing symptoms of Parkinson’s, which the doctor then prescribed meds for - and he more then doubled the dose of the anti-psychotic.
Within a couple weeks time, our friend was a literal zombie. He ended up in the hospital nearly dieing from dehydration. That’s when we thought we’d better step in. His wife was a mess and couldn’t handle anything. We started researching his meds. The anti-psychotic specifically says NOT to be prescribed to people with dementia. Two of the symptoms were - Parkinson’s symptoms and severe dehydration.
It didn’t end there. His wife suffered a nervous breakdown and ended up in the psych ward. He was still having problems and ended up back in the hospital. We were able to get in touch with their family who lives abroad. The grand daughter got here almost immediately. Finally, our friend was taken to a different doctor for evaluation. He had been misdiagnosed. He does not have dementia.
My beloved husband of 45 years has Parkinson’s, and almost died this past February. It appears that the Parkinson’s specialists overdosed him on the drugs used to control the symptoms of this.
My only comment is... that our present “ideation” on the chronic illnesses of aging is the use of drugs.
Most of these have horrible side effects. We go to the docs, hoping for relief from the incurable aging problems, and they feel obliged to prescribe whatever the pharmaceutical companies are selling.
It is too hard for them to tell us the truth, that many of these have no safe pharmaceutical fix. In other words, there is no “rose garden pill” when the body begins to wear out, and the side effects from the various drugs may be worse than the original complaint.
We have lost our souls, because we are searching the wider and easier path. This applies to all generations, young, middle, and old.
There is no longer any social contract. Child-bearing adults farm out their young to day care, so they can chase the “good life” of shopping for modern artifacts, while their parents are forced into senior communities, so the children can afford day care, two cars, and whatever is “au courant” at Williams Sonoma (or maybe a copy from Target).
We have truly lost our way.
So what does he have?