My mother in law has a plethora of diagnoses and a ridiculous number of prescriptions. The list includes bi-polar, dementia, problems with etoh and severe anxiety. She is taking lithium, gabapentin , benztropine , divalproex, lorazepam and ferrous sulfate. She has been in and out of hospital over the last three months. She has lucid days but due to the lack of consistency we are having a hard time figuring out what to do. She is at a stage today that I am not comfortable leaving her alone. She had a psychiatrist but doesn't seem to follow up and she isn't interested in " talking " about her problems. She wants a pill to fix her. She has definite addictive behaviors but as a counselor I really hate the labels and the lack of teaching being done in her case. How do we find out how much of this is medication and how much is really disease? And is it a disease that she can learn to deal with behaviorally via a good treatment program or is it a real biological issue?