Is loss of modesty a sign of dementia?

[Anonymous]

My 88-year-old mother has been losing weight and has had unexplained nausea and dizziness since early July. She spend much of the summer in bed "sick." She is now in rehab with a back injury (compression fracture) and is barely getting out of bed.

I have posted on DCUM about her nausea and my family's efforts to get her to see various specialists including a neurologist. They have ruled out all obvious explanations: inner ear/vestibular; brain tumor; vision; GI issues; UTI. (She has had MRIs and CAT scans including of her head and GI tract.) She has gone off pain pills and other medications that can cause nausea (even Tylenol).

I'm left thinking she is developing some kind of dementia. She still seems sharp and on top of her finances. But one weird thing is that over the summer, she lost all sense of modesty. She would come downstairs naked to get food, according to my stepfather. When I visited her last week at the rehab place, she was not wearing underwear (because "it kept bunching up"). She barely seemd to care that the nurses saw her half naked.

She complains constantly about nausea, dizziness and a "twirling" feeling in her head. She rarely sleeps well and often wakes in the middle of the night with what seem to be panic attacks.

I know these aren't the most obvious signs of dementia, but could that explain her symptoms? Of course, anxiety is another possibility but SSRIs also make her nauseaus, and it would take weeks for them to kick in.

[Anonymous]

No idea what that could be but dementia's certainly a possibility. Have they tried scopolamine patches for the dizziness/nausea?

[Anonymous]

Yes, my friend's mom started parading naked even in front of her grandchildren with dementia. Also, they can have plenty of lucid moments and seem totally fine a lot of the time.

My mother has lost her modesty in a completely different way. She thinks she was the best mother who ever exited and will brag about just how amazing she is and tell you how terrible you are ad nauseam. Let's just say our accounts of her parenting differ, but if we ever contradicted her I am afraid she would become violent despite being medicated.

[Anonymous]

My mom pulls up her shirt to show my her breasts at least once every two weeks (she complains about how hot they get and thinks that showing them to me will somehow make a difference). This was a woman who was incredibly modest my entire life. She also tries to show me her pubes every so often (she complains about them and doesn’t know why they’re there and has forgotten she’s had them since puberty and every so often now she’s notice them and they bother her so she has to share the visual). So yes, a loss of modesty is definitely part of dementia.

I can’t explain your moms other symptoms though.