Experiences with diagnosis of catatonia?

[larkstar]

My friends husband seems finally to have a diagnosis of catatonia but it has been a long and difficult journey to reach this point. He's early 60's and generally been in good health - a drummer - slim - healthy looking. Out of the blue a year ago he had what they initially thought was a First Psychotic Episode (FPE) - I'd never heard of the term before. It is sometimes a precursor to further episodes and sometimes concludes with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The powerful antipsychotic drugs he started taking - as she had been warned they might - quickly had many adverse reactions and within days he was taken off them and hospitalised. There were subsequent episodes of strange behaviour - wandering off from the house, becoming unresponsive, collapses - he was hospitalised several times while they did further tests - including many different types of brain scan - they started to look to confirm early onset dementia but none of the scans offered up any evidence to support that so it seems that he is now being treated for catatonia - he was anxious and stressed about work and finances - he has now started a course of ECT (electro convulsive therapy) - which - as far as I've read - can be relatively effective in helping to alleviate some of the symptoms. His wife describes him as in a "stupor", some echolalia (repeating phrases back), moving slowly, unresponsive - it's a terrible thing for her to be dealing with and over so long a period when she didn't know what was wrong with him - it has come completely out of the blue. She has single handedly had to sell their house and move - as neither can now work - and move from a rural area to the edge of a city into an apartment she can afford on benefits and income - she is now his carer - not the career she ever planned to have. I am trying to read around a bit and I keep in touch with her regularly but she's not in the UK (Scandinavia - she struggles with the language) - I just wondered what I could pick up from people who have some first hand experience of catatonia and the treatment as I'd like to support her in whatever way I can - we've been friends for about 15 years now and she's never had problems in her life - nothing like this - I've never known her so down (understandably) - I plan to fly out to see her but I'm not sure when that might be. It seems like her career, relationship, finances, future, retirement have all imploded in one go.

No experience sorry @larkstar. Sounds like a very difficult situation though.

@PritiPatelsMaker thanks for the reply! I try - I want not to shrink into the background when people I know - friends usually - have problems. A long time ago - 30 years? - something happened with a work colleague of mine - actually a little older and more experienced that I was - a clever guy that I didn't know that well - a work rival in some ways as we were the only two that shared a similar set of skills and aspirations - he always got the little innovative technical projects I wanted but he worked down the other end of the office and we rarely crossed paths. I was asked to go to his house once to get the brief on a project he was working on that they wanted me to pick up - I didn't know he was off work or why and frankly - even though it was highly unusual to be asked to go to his house to find out about the work - I was more focused about getting the chance to do the work... anyway - typical young oblivious geek that I was. It soon dawned on him when I got there that I had no idea why he was off - I'll be vague with the details now as it would be outing - his child had died in a freak accident at home when he had been at home - he said he'd quickly noticed that people in the small town he lived in, some he knew to exchange the odd word with - had seemed to want to go out of their way to avoid having to say anything to him - crossing the road to avoid him - he said he understood that they probably felt very uncomfortable and awkward not knowing what to say or worrying about saying the wrong thing - he admitted - he - in their shoes - wouldn't have known what to say either but - he said he had found it quite hurtful that people avoided him and didn't want to talk - he said never turn away from people with problems - the smallest kindnesses you offer at difficult times can sometimes mean more than you imagine - I will never forget that meeting with him and our conversation.