What is the trajectory for this type of dementia?

[Anonymous]

My mom is 84 and for the past 8 years has had steadily declining short term memory. It's now to the point that she will forget what we spoke about 10 minutes ago, and she is cloudy with certain long term memories too. She has forgotten how my dad died, for example.

She still knows me and her immediate family members. Her cognitive abilities are still good, she reads and plays on the computer. She has been making other slight cognitive mistakes (for example, she thought there were 10 animals in the Chinese Zodiac instead of 12.) She no longer cooks or drives at all.

The thing is, my mom has severe medical anxiety and has for her entire life. There was a very traumatic event in her childhood and even when she was a successful adult, she has often refused to see a doctor. (Including when she broke her arm and refused to let any family members see her arm for two whole days after she broke it.) As a result, none of my siblings or me has wanted to force her to see a doctor about her dementia.

If you took care of a parent with similar short term memory loss, can you describe how the dementia progressed? Is emotional/cognitive decline inevitable as well? I will say, it has been a blessing that while my mom was not an easy going person when she had her memory, right now, her dementia is difficult but has mellowed her personality and she has become a lot sweeter and easy going.

[Anonymous]

Is emotional/cognitive decline inevitable as well? Yes.

There will be balance issues, if not already. Falls are very typical.

My FIL became belligerent. My mother is starting to. Their filter completely dissolves with this disease.

She will also lose a lot of weight.

[Anonymous]

Be very careful about finances and her access to money, managing it, etc. She is ripe for a scam, particularly online, but via phone scams. Get POA if you don’t have it yet.

[Anonymous]

Doctors can't do anything about dementia, nothing that really works, so there's that. I think with many, they start having bathroom accidents at night which leads them to be embarrassed. They then stop drinking enough fluids, afraid of accidents. They get dehydrated. This can lead to UTIs which surprisingly can give them mental disturbances, until the UTI is discovered and treated. Dehydration can land them in the hospital. They can fall. When they stop or refuse (enough) fluids, reclining to eat may happen next. At that point they have decided it's close to their time to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doctors can't do anything about dementia, nothing that really works, so there's that. I think with many, they start having bathroom accidents at night which leads them to be embarrassed. They then stop drinking enough fluids, afraid of accidents. They get dehydrated. This can lead to UTIs which surprisingly can give them mental disturbances, until the UTI is discovered and treated. Dehydration can land them in the hospital. They can fall. When they stop or refuse (enough) fluids, reclining to eat may happen next. At that point they have decided it's close to their time to go.

This. Over a 1-3 year trajectory.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thank you for your responses. The siblings and I had decided from our own research that the lack of treatment plans for dementia make it not worth the trauma of forcing my mom to the doctor.

It is sobering and depressing to think that she is on an inevitable decline that will lead to emotional/cognitive losses. Aging is so hard. It's cruel and undignified.

Right now my mom is still physically healthy. She's definitely slowing down but still spry and mobile. I don't think bathroom accidents have happened yet. But she often forgets to eat and as a result will drink 10-20 bottles of Ensure a day if she finds the stash. The main reason I had wanted to take her to the doctor is I wanted to understand what the future holds for her, so I really appreciate the posters who can share their experiences.

We do have a financial and medical POA in place, and she doesn't access her own funds. Scammers are a concern. A few years ago she called me 0repeatedly because a spam caller had convinced her that police would arrest her if she didn't send them money. It was terrible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Thank you for your responses. The siblings and I had decided from our own research that the lack of treatment plans for dementia make it not worth the trauma of forcing my mom to the doctor.

It is sobering and depressing to think that she is on an inevitable decline that will lead to emotional/cognitive losses. Aging is so hard. It's cruel and undignified.

Right now my mom is still physically healthy. She's definitely slowing down but still spry and mobile. I don't think bathroom accidents have happened yet. But she often forgets to eat and as a result will drink 10-20 bottles of Ensure a day if she finds the stash. The main reason I had wanted to take her to the doctor is I wanted to understand what the future holds for her, so I really appreciate the posters who can share their experiences.

We do have a financial and medical POA in place, and she doesn't access her own funds. Scammers are a concern. A few years ago she called me 0repeatedly because a spam caller had convinced her that police would arrest her if she didn't send them money. It was terrible.

My mother was convinced that the spam caller was someone from her past whom she had issues with. I got her a phone that can only receive and send calls to 10 people on the contact list.

I also got her a gps monitor so we can track her if she ever leaves the house.

IMO, you should still take her to see a doctor to get it checked out. Maybe have one visit your home. My FIL absolutely refused to believe he had any issues even when he was going hard of hearing (not related to dementia). They had someone come to the house to assess him. This was not in the US.

[Anonymous]

Is she living alone? She is a danger to herself if she is.

My Mom was very very resistant to moving (with my Dad to IL near me). It was still early stages, but I’m sure it was scary to think about moving. (And she had no idea she had memory loss) But she got violent, and we had to move them to protect my Dad.

I’m so glad they moved closer to me. And that we moved her when we did. She had just enough memory making ability to get settled in their apartment. If we had waited, it would’ve been much more traumatic for her.

And as others have said, the balance starts to go. Even with 24/7 caregivers, my Mom fell and hit her head. And that’s what killed her. It was difficult as the head injury was happening, but blessings in disguise that I didn’t have to watch her get to the end stages of dementia.

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry OP. My dad had dementia and from what I understand, trajectories can vary considerably. To keep her at home as long as possible, it might be helpful to have someone with elder care experience do an assessment of her living conditions - it's almost like professional babyproofers, they will help you identify hazards. You should also be contemplating options for when she needs more intrusive care - it's much easier to investigate memory care or skilled nursing when you're not in a crisis situation.

Also fwiw, since you said your mom has mellowed with dementia, I just wanted to say that not every person with dementia becomes combative or difficult - my father always had an upbeat talkative personality (he was a salesman) and those qualities intensified as his dementia grew worse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm sorry OP. My dad had dementia and from what I understand, trajectories can vary considerably. To keep her at home as long as possible, it might be helpful to have someone with elder care experience do an assessment of her living conditions - it's almost like professional babyproofers, they will help you identify hazards. You should also be contemplating options for when she needs more intrusive care - it's much easier to investigate memory care or skilled nursing when you're not in a crisis situation.

Also fwiw, since you said your mom has mellowed with dementia, I just wanted to say that not every person with dementia becomes combative or difficult - my father always had an upbeat talkative personality (he was a salesman) and those qualities intensified as his dementia grew worse.

You are so lucky! It would be a much easier disease if this happened to everyone. My Mom got paranoid and violent.

[Anonymous]

You’ve gotten some good advice above. I would make sure she has been checked for reversible causes of dementia: TSH, B12 mostly. In answer to your question, dementia tends to progress at the rate it has already progressed. Sounds like hers is slowly progressive so will likely continue to be. People don’t die from f dementia they die of complications: falls, aspiration leading to pneumonia, urosepsis. Or they might develop something else that kills them first: heart attack, stroke, cancer for example.

[Anonymous]

Both of my parents have dementia and they have, so far, knock on wood, kept their lovely manners and personalities. I hope they remain this lucky. We did put my mom on Remeron and thwt seems to help her mood.

[Anonymous]

My Mother died in her 90's and was of sound mind except for a couple of times when she wasn't. And the very rare odd behavior, we did not know what brought it on. She called one day saying she was in Brazil (she lived in a small town in the MidWest), was at a political rally and was lost in the crowd and couldn't find my Father (he had already passed, btw)

I mention this because, this is all I said. "You're ok Mom. You're safe." That seemed to be enough. I didn't have to convince her she *wasn't* in Brazil. I didn't seem to have to bring her back to reality, just had to reassure her, with a few words, that she was safe.

[Anonymous]

Op, my mil passed away in Oct from dementia. She was pretty similar to your mom, about 4 years ago-stopped driving (lost, fender benders), no cooking (could pour cereal but not do the steps of cooking), repeated the same story over and over.
Around 3 years ago, she tried to walk to Walmart-which is across a 6 lane road with no sidewalk, you don't walk there. And she got lost. Thankfully a Good Samaritian ushered her to safety and called the police.
At 2 years ago, she stopped speaking much and only knew her dh and son. They started having help come in a few hrs a day then.
In the last year, it was more rapid decline, she could not care for her needs at all, she basically stopped eating and drinking, which is how that goes. In her case , she never got belligerent or violent-actually was quiet.

I'm sorry OP. I would take her to the dr to make sure it's not some treatable issue.

[Anonymous]

Is she Chinese? Take her to Dr. Lee on I street. He is a general practitioner but he was great with my mom who had dementia.