Should atavan be given to an elderly dimentia patient?

Dzoobaby is right, When I did volunteer work in our chemo infusion unit we had one lady in particular who suffered from (cancer) and from dimensia it was difficult to know what to give but if she was agitated many times it was her lack of ability to tell us and so they would give her a low dose pain reliever (reduced enough so that if that didn't seem to be the problem they could call the doctor and give her a dose of ativan. from the many that were seen who suffered this ativan seemed to be a drug that worked well if it was indeed agitation

Some times it is given for agitation in elderly dementia patients, but I find that often people with dementia do not know how to express that they are in pain and will become agitated from the discomfort. Sometimes, if you give them a pain reliever like acetaminophen first, they will calm down. Then you know the pain caused their agitation. If the pain med does not calm them, then it may be time to give the ativan for the agitation. Just my thoughts and experience on this matter.