Hi, new member here. I'm a 46 year old female, living with my 84 year old mother, and 73 year old father. Dad is fine...sans congestive heart failure, and diabetes. It's my mother that is my concern.

She is growing increasingly combative verbally, is CONSTANTLY paranoid about one of us stealing from her (ranging from her facial creams - which this has gone on for several years; to stealing her money). She recently started having the notion that she recently came to our home with a 'big tray of money'; money that is actually my money that I pay for rent living here! This started back in early October. At that time, my older brother began moving to Washington State. We are in Central California. My mother also started seeing a cardiologist at that same time in early October. She has been having chest pains frequently for the past year, and has lived on nitroglycerin like it was candy. Yet she refused to physically go in to her doctor.

Finally, her dr. sent her to the cardiologist in Oct., and he began her on Coreg, Lacex, and Diovan for heart failure. Very shortly after she began taking the pills, she started becoming more and more paranoid, and woke me up one night to come sit with her in the front room to 'wait for the mailman...he's bringing me a package.'

She now truly believes that she has only been here for 2 or 3 weeks, and that she was living up in Washington State with her mother - who has been deceased since 1984. She thinks she came with the money I've paid her.

She's becoming increasingly abusive verbally, and extremely distrusting. I will be calling her cardiologist this week to ask if dementia-like symptoms can be a side effect of her medication, or if this could truly be dementia or AD.

She hides her nitro pills, because she believes that dad is trying to kill her. :eek: She looks at me now like I'm some sort of monster. I want my mother back! :(

In looking back, I do believe that dementia has been creeping in for awhile now. She would ask me at least ten times in 5 minutes what day it is, and has become increasingly suspicious of us....to the point that I have cancelled at least 3 weeks' worth of vacation time this year, just because I didn't want to be around the house for a week....and I'm seriously thinking of cancelling some of my days over the Christmas/New Years holiday.

She complains about never getting out of the house, yet declines when we ask her if she wants to go somewhere. Then complains about it more later! :rolleyes:

I'm getting to my own breaking point. Dad is definitely to his breaking point.... how many times can one person be called a ******* in one day and not let it affect them???

Thanks for letting me rant.....this is taking such an emotional toll on my mental, and physical well-being.

My mom was diagnosed with Left Ventricular Dysfunction last year, and about the same time that she started on her meds from her cardiologist (Coreg, Diovan, Lasix, Isosorbide) is when her behavior changes really came to the forefront. A couple of days after being on her meds, she woke me up at 11 pm one night to come sit in the front room and 'wait for the mailman... he was bringing a package.' She truly believed the mailman was bringing a package at that time of night.

Not long after that is when she started believing that she had been living somewhere else, and now believes that she has left and come back several times.

I have tried to find information about side effects from the heart meds, and even went so far as to call her doc's nurse....all that got was her doctor asking her questions about her memory and telling her that a family member had been calling 'concerned' and told her who called. I paid for that for over a month. I honestly believe that there is some sort of side effect with some of these heart meds that causes dementia-like symptoms, but I can't find ANYTHING anywhere with similiar cases.

My dad also has CHF, but he doesn't exhibit any of the symptoms of AD or dementia like mom does. He's also on a cholesterol drug, and has been for a couple of years. But he isn't on the Coreg. My cousin is on Coreg, and she isn't like this, so I'm probably grasping at straws to think that the meds are contributing, or possibly accelerating her decline.

I think mom started down this road as early as 1998. My dad told me a couple of days ago that he told me back then that we were going to have a problem in the future, because she was starting to forget, and was having trouble with her decision making back then. She's been paranoid about someone stealing her cream for about that long, so this is nothing new, but the anger she has when thinking about it is disturbing.

If I had my choice, I'm with you Martha....I'd rather lose my body than my mind. Mom's mom was bedridden for a couple of years before she died, and said she didn't know why she had to lose her body, why couldn't she lose her mind? Well, I think she's observing why now in her own daughter. I bet if Grandma was here and saw how mom talks to us, she'd tan her hide good! ;)