Vascular dementia and rapid decline

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The speech aphasia and other symptoms were diagnosed as they emerged, the vascular dementia diagnosis was confirmed by MRI.

I’m the OP and my mom was diagnosed the same way- aphasia was the first diagnosis and the MRI a few years later showed small vessel disease and a previous stroke. She’s also a lifetime smoker which I’m sure played a role.

From my very limited experience the dementia experience varies from Alzheimer’s in that the vascular dementia folks don’t have some of the same types of symptoms. My mom doesn’t do the sundowning and she has awareness that I’m not sure the Alzheimer’s patients have. She tires very easily (and like a toddler you can tell from her behavior when she’s tired- she really loses comprehension and the ability to formulate a sentence that makes sense). She also sleeps a lot.

[Anonymous]

This thread is timely, b/c my 81 year old mom has twice now just seemed "off" - once, telling me something twice in the span of 20 minutes, and the second time, forgetting a detail that she ordinarily wouldn't forget. My radar is up.

Wondering what point should I step in, and what is the "step in" process like? Asking her to go to the dr to be evaluated for....dementia? She is still driving, active, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is timely, b/c my 81 year old mom has twice now just seemed "off" - once, telling me something twice in the span of 20 minutes, and the second time, forgetting a detail that she ordinarily wouldn't forget. My radar is up.

Wondering what point should I step in, and what is the "step in" process like? Asking her to go to the dr to be evaluated for....dementia? She is still driving, active, etc.

Really just start paying more attention. In my mom’s case it was a super slow progression but the last year has sped up. Initially we thought maybe she was under a lot of stress. Eventually over the course of a few years it became increasingly apparent there were issues. My mom was diagnosed with aphasia first because from time to time she couldn’t remember the correct words for things. Dementia came later.

My mom stopped driving on her own because she moved to an independent living place and I’m convinced she thought she’d never find her way back if she left in her car- she is incapable of using maps.