Mom forgets coffee in microwave multiple times a week

[Anonymous]

Great post 8:00

[Anonymous]

I don't think any of that is an issue. Just remember, she had so many Thanksgivings. If you could see yourself, you would also notice that you are forgetting many things.
I have lived in 8 countries, moved constantly, and can't remember some names.
But I also might forget things bcs I am so busy.
My work is nonstop, like putting off the bathroom till I absolutely have to go.

[Anonymous]

The takeaway for me from this thread is that people reheat their coffee in the microwave.
I have never done that, never thought to do so, and I am slightly grossed out to hear people do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The takeaway for me from this thread is that people reheat their coffee in the microwave.
I have never done that, never thought to do so, and I am slightly grossed out to hear people do that.

I do this every day, multiple times, with coffee and hot tea. I like hot beverages hot versus lukewarm or room temperature, and I don't finish the cup before it cools.

[Anonymous]

And sometimes I do forget the cup in the microwave if I'm busy doing other things, but our microwave stops beeping after a certain point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The takeaway for me from this thread is that people reheat their coffee in the microwave.
I have never done that, never thought to do so, and I am slightly grossed out to hear people do that.

I do this every day, multiple times, with coffee and hot tea. I like hot beverages hot versus lukewarm or room temperature, and I don't finish the cup before it cools.

Personally, I prefer the ritual of making a fresh cup of coffee or discarding any leftover tea. I also make enough coffee so I can just have it later in the day.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:And sometimes I do forget the cup in the microwave if I'm busy doing other things, but our microwave stops beeping after a certain point.

Same. But I remember last Thanksgiving without prompting. DH had several symptoms like memory and vision changes and no one, including his internist thought to do any further investigation. Turns out he had developed hydrocephalus. Ignoring a new constellation of symptoms, however minor they seem separately, is foolish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very little a doctor can do. Current meds make little or no difference.

That’s not true.There are medications that treat symptoms of most dementias other than vascular and FTD. There is a new medication that slows progression https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/treatments/lecanemab-leqembi already approved, and LLY has two more getting close to approval that are probably going to be even better.

And there are lifestyle interventions that can be very helpful as well. Nevertheless, OP just needs to focus on what (if anything) is going on. Then her family can deal with facts.

The new medication lecanemab is $26,000 a year, the benefits are minimal and might not even be clinically significant in women at all. There is also a risk of brain bleeds and there is concerned about other side effects including brain shrinkage that scientist really aren't sure what the long term effects will be.

One of the test used in the study is the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale which assesses cognitive and functional performance in six areas: memory, orientation, judgment and problem solving, community affairs, home and hobbies, and personal care. Scores range from 0 meaning no dementia to 18 meaning the most significant dementia. Low scores are better. Over the clinical trial the Mean change of CDR-SB from baseline at 18 months was 1.21 for the lecanemab group and 1.66 for the placebo groups. Both groups declined and the decline among both groups was much larger than the difference between the groups. The difference wasn't even half a point.
0 = no dementia/normal
0.5 – 4.0 = questionable
0.5 – 2.0 = questionable impairment
2.5 – 4.0 = very mild dementia
4.5 – 9.0 = mild dementia
9.5 – 15.5 = moderate dementia
16.0 – 18.0 = severe dementia

Is that worth not just $26,000 a year but the time caregivers are going to have to dedicate to take their loved one every other week for an infusion the takes an hour. So the caregiver has to pick up their loved one if they aren't living with them and make sure they are ready/help them get ready, drive over to where they can get the infusion, check in and have the elderly patient check in, get the one hour infusion and drive back. All that can take half a day. There are cheaper generic pills that are almost as good. And good is relative because there really aren't any good treatments.

The other issue is that for all of this minimal improvement the person with dementia/alzheimers might have their lives extended. In one study about a dementia drug called donzepil those taking the drug lived about 2 1/2 years longer than people not on the medication. I absolutely do not want to live 2 1/2 years longer if I had dementia and as a caretaker for my mother who has dementia- I don't want her to suffer for 2 1/2 more years and I certainly do not want the stress of caregiving to last 2 1/2 years longer.

You are cherry picking and not current . It’ is covered by medicaid and Medicare. It slows progression by 26% and multiple better drugs are nearing approval. There are lifestyle interventions. But this is a derailment. The point is for OP or others in her situation, don’t panic, seek competent evaluations and proceed from there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Very little a doctor can do. Current meds make little or no difference.

That’s not true.There are medications that treat symptoms of most dementias other than vascular and FTD. There is a new medication that slows progression https://www.alz.org/alzheimers-dementia/treatments/lecanemab-leqembi already approved, and LLY has two more getting close to approval that are probably going to be even better.

And there are lifestyle interventions that can be very helpful as well. Nevertheless, OP just needs to focus on what (if anything) is going on. Then her family can deal with facts.

The new medication lecanemab is $26,000 a year, the benefits are minimal and might not even be clinically significant in women at all. There is also a risk of brain bleeds and there is concerned about other side effects including brain shrinkage that scientist really aren't sure what the long term effects will be.

One of the test used in the study is the Clinical Dementia Rating Scale which assesses cognitive and functional performance in six areas: memory, orientation, judgment and problem solving, community affairs, home and hobbies, and personal care. Scores range from 0 meaning no dementia to 18 meaning the most significant dementia. Low scores are better. Over the clinical trial the Mean change of CDR-SB from baseline at 18 months was 1.21 for the lecanemab group and 1.66 for the placebo groups. Both groups declined and the decline among both groups was much larger than the difference between the groups. The difference wasn't even half a point.
0 = no dementia/normal
0.5 – 4.0 = questionable
0.5 – 2.0 = questionable impairment
2.5 – 4.0 = very mild dementia
4.5 – 9.0 = mild dementia
9.5 – 15.5 = moderate dementia
16.0 – 18.0 = severe dementia

Is that worth not just $26,000 a year but the time caregivers are going to have to dedicate to take their loved one every other week for an infusion the takes an hour. So the caregiver has to pick up their loved one if they aren't living with them and make sure they are ready/help them get ready, drive over to where they can get the infusion, check in and have the elderly patient check in, get the one hour infusion and drive back. All that can take half a day. There are cheaper generic pills that are almost as good. And good is relative because there really aren't any good treatments.

The other issue is that for all of this minimal improvement the person with dementia/alzheimers might have their lives extended. In one study about a dementia drug called donzepil those taking the drug lived about 2 1/2 years longer than people not on the medication. I absolutely do not want to live 2 1/2 years longer if I had dementia and as a caretaker for my mother who has dementia- I don't want her to suffer for 2 1/2 more years and I certainly do not want the stress of caregiving to last 2 1/2 years longer.

You are cherry picking and not current . It’ is covered by medicaid and Medicare. It slows progression by 26% and multiple better drugs are nearing approval. There are lifestyle interventions. But this is a derailment. The point is for OP or others in her situation, don’t panic, seek competent evaluations and proceed from there.

What do you mean cherry picking and not current? Just because a medication is covered doesn't mean you should consider if it is worth it. Do you understand what the 26% means? In the study both the people who got the very expensive twice a month infusion and the placebo group BOTH declined. Over the clinical trial the Mean change of CDR-SB from baseline at 18 months was 1.21 for the lecanemab group and 1.66 for the placebo groups. That is where they are getting the 26% . The difference in decline was only .45 if you divide that by 1.66 you get 26%. If you look at supplementary data you can see that it is NOT as effective in women (mean change in CDR-SB was only .20 / decline 12%) vs men (mean change in CDR-SB was .73). And if you have Two copies of the ApoE4 Genotype then you ended up being WORSE off taking the drug as the placebo group did better. It also isn't that great if you are under 65. So if you are a man over 75 with no copies of ApoE4 then it might be worth it but since it is an twice a month infusion it is a LOT of work for caregivers since the person has to be taken somewhere to get the infusion.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/suppl/10.1056/NEJMoa2212948/suppl_file/nejmoa2212948_appendix.pdf
Look on page 18.

Journal article stating this information entitled Lecanemab (Leqembi) is not the right drug for patients with Alzheimer’s disease https://advances.umw.edu.pl/en/article/2023/32/9/943/

[Anonymous]

Wow!
First of all 69 is not old.
There are certain things I forget frequently.
Everyone has their ‘thing’
And yea it is easy to ignore the beeping, it becomes white noise.
There’s garage near my office that has a makes a constant noise and it has become white noise to me, I’m barely conscious of it.
I’m still amazed you think 69 is really old.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My mom is 69. Cognitively she’s okay but I’ve noticed it’s been declining but again, she’s 69 so I figure that’s normal. We were talking about the entire family (22 of us) having Thanksgiving at the beach house last year and she said, “we didn’t have Thanksgiving there”. My brother and I looked at her confused and told her that we did but she said again that we hadn’t. We then recounted stories of things that we did and then that’s when she remembered. Outside of that incident there’s been nothing truly alarming, just general forgetfulness due to old age I guess - she’ll occasionally repeat something she just told me the day prior. Other times she’s repeating word for word what she heard on the news and things she’s read when debating politics (she loves politics), and this is what gives me some reassurance.

My mother teaches virtually and everyday during the work week she has coffee. A handful of those days she forgets her coffee in the microwave despite it beeping non stop for hours, which I can hear from upstairs. I attributed this to her not hearing the beeping because she’s obviously teaching. However, this happens so frequently that it’s causing me to be worried. So I don’t know if I’m overreacting here or not.

Thoughts?

69 isn't old age. At all. Why not find out about other health issues such as exhaustion, burnout, thyroid, sleep or just about anything before you go straight to dementia. Dementia is not the norm for a 69 year old. It happens, but not a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wow!
First of all 69 is not old.
There are certain things I forget frequently.
Everyone has their ‘thing’
And yea it is easy to ignore the beeping, it becomes white noise.
There’s garage near my office that has a makes a constant noise and it has become white noise to me, I’m barely conscious of it.
I’m still amazed you think 69 is really old.

This perceived notion of 69 being elderly and prone to dementia is very telling. This means everyone around this woman has some idea that this is expected and their confirmation bias is finding weird out of context stuff. I already feel sorry for this woman.

[Anonymous]

If she cooperates please take her for an evaluation. I should have done the same with my father when I started to notice small things like this but did not. And I regret it. If all is okay, you will know. And if not, better to know sooner rather than some years from now.

[Anonymous]

Other than the episodic memory issue around Thanksgiving, that all sounds very normal.

Oddly, I think a lot depends on what the Thanksgiving was like.

In my family there is a specific kind of prototype Thanksgiving that we've had almost 40 times in my life and then a variant (often involving travel to a place that isn't a family residence) that we've done 10 times or so.

If you were to ask me about any one of those 10 trips, I wouldn't necessarily recall that it was Thanksgiving when it happened--the fact of the location, etc. having been different would totally overcome the date/holiday in my mind.

I'm 49 and do not have dementia.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok a few things. She sounds like she is doing a lot. Working, grieving, child living at home, hosting large family gatherings, etc. She also may have some hearing loss and just general getting older issues.

With my mom there were alarming signs like getting lost trying to drive home from church which she had done for 40+ years. Finding her phone in the fridge. Those sorts of things which were eye opening.

She put her dentures in the China cabinet during Christmas two years ago. She took them out and was putting away something and we couldn’t find them for weeks. She called me crying because my dad said she’s always forgetting things and said if she has dementia to put her in a home. I just thought that was absentmindedly putting them in wrong place so I wasn’t worried and told her that.

Now this--in combination with your brother being concerned--strikes me as a much bigger deal, OP. Not just losing the dentures, but the fact that your dad basically had this assessment of her at the time. It sounds like he may have been a real douche, but that doesn't mean necessarily mean he had no perceptive abilities.