Curious if others caring for loved ones have seen these things? My MIL has passout episodes after extemely "rough" days
This is going to be long so please bear with me. My MIL is 79 soon to be 80. She had her 1st stroke in 2008, 2nd 2010. Since then no major strokes but 50 + ( doctors dont count them now) TIA's. She was not diagnosed with Dementia until Late last year. We noticed "off" behaviour starting after the 2nd stroke but at 1st attributed it to the stroke, we would have maybe 1 bad day or off day every few monthes. it quickly became once a month, to were we are now maybe 2 good days a week. She is very, very good at hiding it. Took her flipping out on nursing staff to get her diagnosed. They called in a geriatric psychiatrist and they rate her at Moderate to severe.
My question is this. Since the strange behaviour started in 2-10 or so she has passout episodes the doctors cant seem to9 figure out. BP is usually great, she will just get unresponsive stare into space, tongue comes out them she passes out. these episodes can last 20 seconds to the longest at 30 min. Wakes up, nauseaus but alert. During these "Spells" her BP will jump all over the place from 130/70 to 70/40 to 200/100 , wakes up then it tends to stay great 120/70.Then weak for several days no worse no better. These hit roughly every 3 weeks. If we see it starting and lay her down flat we seem to be able to keep her from going all the way out and she recovers much faster. The only precursers we have to the "spell" is that she will have a very bad day with her BP bouncing around abit a day or so before it happens.
Has anybody else seen anything like this?
At this point she is watched by us 24/7. Never left alone in the house, Not to stand up for any reason unless someone is in the room with her. This works for the most part unless she decides to roam in the middle of the night. Bed alarms dont work with her, baby moniter doesnt work she becomes super ninja then either forgets it or flat out lies. I guess most of the question is could it be related to the dementia?
What doctors have run tests? Cardio? Neurologist? Vascular?
I don't necessary suspect this might be the situation but mention it because it hasn't been discussed and because we've experienced it. It's called syncope, or syncope episodes.
It was raised as an issue after my father passed out at church, and again after he apparently passed out, fell and broke his leg.
Cardiologist, neurologist, and I believe others I don't remember now were consulted. Apparently syncope episodes don't have specific, identifiable etiologies, and after all the testing, the conclusion was that a cause for passing out couldn't be identified.
There's another remote possibility and that's an inner ear imbalance, which could cause passing out (as it did with me) but I don't know whether or not it would be preceded by blank staring. Mine eventually was traced to sinus issues.
This isn't a medical suggestion, but perhaps on the days that appear to begin roughly, you could intervene with some type of calming activity...play CDs of her favorite music, look through family photographs...whatever could calm her and redirect that anxiety and frustration or whatever causes the rough days.
Since they happen roughly every 3 weeks, have you kept track of the specific days, and spent more time with her a few days before you anticipate they might start, observing everything that she does, eats, and drinks, to begin charting possible contributory factors?
Definition: A petit mal seizure is the term given to a staring spell. It is most commonly called an absence seizure. It is a brief (usually less than 15 seconds) disturbance of brain function due to abnormal electrical activity in the brain.