Question: HI ,

My Mother is having strange issues. I am not sure if this is depression or what. Although my mpther have been issues like behaving strangely since many years like she used to shut her inside a room and starts beating it but usually these were temporary and went away on their own after some time. Few months back I have noticed Loss of Attention in my mother i.e. she was lost in her own world and was not aware what we were talking about although that was still fine but a couple of months back our neighbours with whom we don't go well along and my mother does not seem to like them for historical reasons came to our house for complaining about seepage that was going into their house from our bathroom. I spoke to them to understand their problem although my mom did not want me to speak to them. She called me 4-5 times and I kept telling her that I am just coming. When I came back she was very upset and after that day started behaving strangely like going here and there and when I tried to ask her, she started behaving agressively and took out a stick and said she will beat me with this if I come near her although she hit me very lightly. A few days of agression episode and then she was sitting quietly not talking nor interested in daily activities. It has been 3 months now and now the condition is that sometimes she starts behaving strangely. Here are a few of her symptoms :--

1.) She will walk too much from one End of the house to another end.
2.) Sometimes she will not sleep at all whole night ( Although she had this problem previously also)
3.) If there is some work which I am getting done in my house from carpenter, electrician etc., she gets angry
4.) If I ask her that I can take her to the doctor, she says NO and says I am alright or no doctor can resolve her issues.
5.) Sometimes she seems allright when I try to talk to her like the other day old movie songs were coming on a TV channel and I was asking her does she knows who the actors are and she was telling all the names and speaking normally but she gets into the other mode all of a sudden also normal episodes are rare.
5.) She opens the door , comes out and closes the door goes to one end of the house comes back again open the door, comes back into the bedroom and closes the door and she repeats it many times. Sometimes she will go out of the house, take a round and then come back.
6.) She becomes upset and agressive when we talk about taking her to Doctor.

Normally she is quite unaware of the conversation going around her however she is eating and preparing the tea, sometimes for us also but most of the times she is behaving strangely and this has been going on for 2-3 months now. PLEASE HELP

Hi Doctor,

Thanks for the answer. The problem is whenever we talk to her about taking her to the doctor, she becomes upset and agreesive and will walk away without talking and then may even go to some other floor and if I try to come near her she will scold me and try to run away from me.

Most of the time she is sitting quietly in a corner and unaware of the discussion going around her and even if somebody rings a bell of the house she will not respond after many times. Finally she may respond. Sometimes all of a sudden however she may appear normal for few minuets only, for instance I go to her all of a sudden and say Hey Mummy can you prepare tea for me, she may prepare it or she will say I just prepared it and its there in the bowl and I can take it. However sometime she talks completely nonsense which does not make any sense like she will talk about putting a trunk in bedroom for keeping clothes which does not make any sense. She also gets irritated when there is a lot of Noise around her sometimes and may go out of that room in anger.

Since it is difficult to take her to a psychatrist, because of the reasons I gave above, I consulted a local psychatrist myself here and he has told me to give her olimelt 5 mg for a couple of days by mixing it in some juice or her food etc. and then he is saying that she will become somewhat normal and then we can take her by speaking to her. Shall I go ahead and give her the medicine

Also the brain lesions you are talking about, what disease will they be used to diagnose

Ok One last thing. Do I need to fear dementia or anything uncurable/untreatable like that. I was worried about it

Thanks Doctor,

I saw on the Internet somewhere that Olimelt (olanzapine) should not be given to elderly patients as it can cause NMS (Neuroleptic malignant syndrome) or sometimes stroke. Is it true. How much are the chances and what should be done.

To start with I was thinking of giving just 2.5 mg of dose rather then 5mg just to see the reaction of my mother's body to the drug.

Do you think even 2.5 mg of Olimelt will give some releif from the symptoms or is it too less of a dose.

Also I saw you are saying that Dementia although not curable but person can still live symptom free for his whole life. Does that mean dementia if NOT at all fatal and will not reduce the age of a person if detected early and if person takes drug for his whole life. By the way I tried checking on my Mom by asking her what day it was and what was the date. She was able to tell me Today's date and day although for some questions she doesn't reply at all. Her major symptom I am worried about is loss of attention.