Parkinson disease and hallucinations

[Marjorie Rudige]

My brother is 57 and has had Parkinson for about 11 years. He recently started hearing voices and were so bad that last week he asked for help before he did something bad to himself or loved ones. He is now on Seroquel twice daily 50mg am and 100mg pm. He keeps thinking that he is crazy...I know he is not. Could these vicious voices be from the Parkinsons or could there be another cause. Desperately need to know and need to help him.

Thank You

Marjorie Rudiger

[Marjorie Rudige]

Thank you so very much for the information. I have lots to learn and appreciate your reply.

Marjorie

[D. R. Hurley]

Originally posted by purplemania

Have you asked his Doctor? Could his medications be the culprit? So sorry your brother is suffering from this disease. [ I was wondering if there is a field in nursing that specializes in the care of parkinsons patients. I would like to start school soon and this is what I would like to do, but can't seem to find any information.

[adrienurse, LPN]

Lewy Body dementia sometimes manifests itself with both parkinsonian type symptoms, severe drug sensitivites and hallucinations.

[FranEMTnurse, CNA, LPN, EMT-I]

My husband had hallucinations as well, and he was taking sinemet too. In fact, I received a phone call from him at 4 AM one night, telling me to rush down to some friends of ours house, because they were having a sword fight on their lawn. I didn't know where that was coming from at first, and I got a bit irritated, because I had to get up again at 6AM.

Another time he phoned me again at 4 AM, and asked me to pick him up. That he was in town. I asked him to look around to see what was there, and he said, "A refrigerator, a stove, etc. Oh, I'm home." That managed to reorient him.

In case you're wondering why he was calling me, we weren't living together at the time, but he always depended on me.

Fran:nurse:

[passing thru]

Why can't we all just live to a ripe old age and go in our sleep some night?

Why is all this suffering necessary?

[lmd32]

It's all about the dopaminergic pathway and the substanstia nigra. The drugs that treat schizophrenia have parkinsonism as a common side effect and the drugs that treat parkinson's can cause hallucinations and other psychotic symptoms. Sounds like your brother has good insight in recognizing that the voices were alien and asking for help. Hope his medications can be adjusted so he doesn't have this distressing side effect. The seroquel sounds like a good idea. I have often seen parkinson patients on antipsychotics to manage side effects and with the newer ones there is less risk of worsening the parkinson symptoms. Good luck to you both.