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Confusion, disoriented and unable to perform simple task

What are some neurological disorders that could cause confusion, disorientation and the inability to perform simple task.  I have a 17 year old son who suffered a traumatic brain injury back in 1996 when he was just 3 years old.  He was in a coma for 2 weeks at that time and had to relearn how to do everything all over again. He has right side hemiparesis. (his right side is affected like what you would see with a stroke victim)  But other than a few mild cognitive delays and the hemiparesis he was a very happy well adjusted teen.  

However, since July of this year he has been experiencing some odd episodes lately.  Let me try to explain a little.  These episodes last around 7 days. It starts out with the first day with him acting kinda hyper and a little wired, then he has trouble sleeping.  Then he goes into a zombie like state (which would seem natural since he is having trouble sleeping)  He becomes disoriented and can't stay focused on anything very long, you ask him simple questions and he seems confused and can't answer them. Questions like "what day is it"," where are you", or even "what is your favorite car" (always 76 Camero).   When he is watching tv he is not really watching it, he's just spacing off, if we watch a movie and ask him an hour later what movie he watched he can't remember.  He can't manage simple task like taking a shower, feeding his dogs, writing his name or tying his shoes.  

He has also wandered off to a neighborhood that is about a mile and a half north of town
out in the country all by itself.  My husband was searching for him when we received a phone call from a police officer had who had received a call from a concerned citizen who had said that a really strange behaving child was roaming their neighborhood and he seemed lost.  At first we were thinking maybe he hit his is head, or he was on drugs or something. So we took him to a hospital where they ran all kinds of blood test, did a cat scan and everything came back normal.

He has had 3 episodes of the same cycle, hyper, unable to sleep, disoriented,  confused and almost
unreachable.  Some example of this is behavior is on the first day of school I told him to get ready and he kept asking where we were going.  I also had to keep redirecting him on what to do next to get ready for school.  When we got in the car he kept asking where we were going. When we got there he looked lost and didn't know any of his teachers names even though he had these teachers last year and the year before.  Another time we were getting ready to go some where and I told him to go get in the car when I got out there he was a half a block away,  When I caught up to him he didn't know where he was going or why he was walking.  

We ended up taking him to the ER once again, this time they admitted him and he was in the hospital for 7 days.  They did a MRI and EEG, and everything once again was normal.  They dx him with rapid cycling BP this is because he has 7-9 days of this behavior and then 10-14 days of normal behavior.  (I might mention he does not get depressed during his 10-14 days of normal)

I don't know much about BP but from what I have read I can see why the hyper activity would be seen as mania but I don't get the other symptoms like the confusion and disorientation or why he loses the ability to tie his shoes or write his name. When he comes back around he has trouble remembering things that had happened to him while in the disoriented state.

I also want to mention that up until a week ago my son had not been on any medications.  They have since started him on Depakote.  They said that this is a mood stabilizer but also works for seizure control because they are not 100% that he was not having seizures.  

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Avatar universal
please check for lyme disease. CD57 lyme test. This sounds like me. I have persistent lyme. went to my physical therapy today only to go home because I was told I had graduated the program already.
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