OP, sorry you are going through this now.

Dealt with my grandfather, father and now my MIL - all getting diagnosed w dementia.

Collectively, first sign was personality change. For example, my grandfather was a very gentle, quiet and patient man. I was shocked to hear him raise his voice to my sibling about something unremarkable and benign - completely out of character for him. Huge red flag. These outbursts became more common.

My father was loquacious - a retired attorney and law professor who quite literally never stopped talking until he seemingly overnight started giving my mom one word answers like yes and fine and okay.

My MIL was always able to keep up with her grandchildren - now teenagers - and would attend their activities, remember details about their friends and interests and now has lost sense of orientation and time. Can’t recall day of week - or when she returned from a trip. Struggles with their names.

Sounds like FTD. My mom had it. Video record her behavior because no one will believe you. My mom was able to keep it together long enough to fool non family members. (It’s called ‘show timing’)

With FTD, the behavior changes is more noticeable than memory changes (but there are some memory changes). But the tests will show “age related” memory changes. And will totally not take the behavior changes into account. Doctors didn’t believe me until I showed them recordings of my mom.

Anonymous wrote:She is very rarely kind. She never was ever very warm or especially loving, but she wasn’t bitter mean like this until this year, and it’s increasingly worse every week or so. My daughter told me that she noticed that she never says “I love you” back to anyone any more; she says “thanks” or “ok bye.”

My mom with dementia does the same thing! What’s up with that?


And yes, OP it sounds just like dementia. I don’t know why but my mom (who was also kind of mean) just got super super mean about two years before we really knew what was going on. She told me she wished she never had me, all the money spent raising me was wasted down the drain. I mean, she always was a bit angry and volatile but overall she was always proud of me and loved me. That’s when I started to really think something was up (but I thought it was psychiatric at first)

One of the early signs for a relative of mine was that she seemed to lose empathy. She would often say no one loved her and cared about her and she had really bad anger/anxiety. The loss of empathy meant she couldn't relate to other people. She also seemed to communicate in scripts and be very self absorbed. During this early stage she also lost a lot of weight and became obsessive about dieting along with a bunch of other OCD type stuff like obsessively washing her hands and mild hoarding.

The pendulum has since swung now that she is in the moderate stage. She love bombs us, is happy all the time, and has put on a ton of weight. She's now overweight, but that's fine by me because they tend to lose weight again in the advanced stage.

It has taken a lot of medications to get her here and a really proactive memory care place.

Sounds like it.

Sounds like loss of taste and smell may be contributing to her weight loss.

Anonymous wrote:She is very rarely kind. She never was ever very warm or especially loving, but she wasn’t bitter mean like this until this year, and it’s increasingly worse every week or so. My daughter told me that she noticed that she never says “I love you” back to anyone any more; she says “thanks” or “ok bye.”

New Poster. My mom became more and more nasty to me (and was never warm and fuzzy to begin with) and still passed the dementia screen. She also could still pretend to be decent and kind to others in public longer than she could with me. From what I have read with some of the frontal temporal impairment disorders like (FTD and a form of FTA) they can pass the screen, but still have dterioration in the frontal temporal lobes causing worsening behavior. My mom always had a mean streak, but I could work around it and she had some good qualities too and sometimes her diva like behavior was amusing. Now she is capable of extreme emotional abuse without relenting. It's really sad because I had figured out how to have a strong relationship with her prior despite her dark side. Now it's impossible.

I think it's probably easier to think "it's the disease" if a sweet and loving mom turns evil. When a challenging parent you worked hard to connect with turns demonic at least for me, I started to wonder if this is just who she is and she can no longer fake the social charms with me.

She is very rarely kind. She never was ever very warm or especially loving, but she wasn’t bitter mean like this until this year, and it’s increasingly worse every week or so. My daughter told me that she noticed that she never says “I love you” back to anyone any more; she says “thanks” or “ok bye.”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does she live alone? If so that explains the weight loss. She may not be able to work the stove. My mom was just eating cereal and microwave meals before we figured it out. She lost a lot of weight.

She has her own home but mostly lives with my older sister and her family these days. I worry that the weight loss and food refusal is something more serious than even dementia? I don’t even know how to be around her anymore. She’s just so mean! Tonight she told me on the phone that my son is fat (he isn’t) and has an ugly face “in my opinion,” she said. Just out of nowhere.

Does she have nice, sweet times too? Mine does but overall dementia does a number. The mom I grew up with and was one of my closest confidants and my biggest cheerleader isn’t really there any more through no fault of her own. I do get glimmers sometimes but it’s the disease that makes them this way. It changes them and takes away any filter or semblance of social norm awareness. You have to remember it’s the disease. Try not to let your current interactions interfere with who she always was- she has no control over this.

My mom has been known to scream at me, she can be incredibly inappropriate in public, she likes to take her shirt off (in private, thank goodness) to show me that she gets hot (not sure what showing me her breasts accomplishes). She’s called me a witch before, accused me of trying to kill her (when I told her she couldn’t smoke cigarettes anymore). It’s not her, it’s the disease. It’s hard to remember that when you’re on the receiving end of something horrible they’re saying. It’s truly a horrific ailment.

Anonymous wrote:Does she live alone? If so that explains the weight loss. She may not be able to work the stove. My mom was just eating cereal and microwave meals before we figured it out. She lost a lot of weight.

She has her own home but mostly lives with my older sister and her family these days. I worry that the weight loss and food refusal is something more serious than even dementia? I don’t even know how to be around her anymore. She’s just so mean! Tonight she told me on the phone that my son is fat (he isn’t) and has an ugly face “in my opinion,” she said. Just out of nowhere.

Does she live alone? If so that explains the weight loss. She may not be able to work the stove. My mom was just eating cereal and microwave meals before we figured it out. She lost a lot of weight.

Sounds like my mom with dementia aside from the weight loss. My mom lost her ability to do almost anything related to technology. She forgot and forgets how to use the power button on the TV (we gave up on channel and volume changing long ago), she doesn’t understand the thermostat. She can’t turn a radio on or off and her short term memory is shot. She can be super mean but mostly only to me in private. She can put on a show most of the time when she’s outside of her apartment around people.

What were some of the first things you noticed?

My 75-yo mother is getting so incredibly mean. She says such nasty, biting comments every time we talk (about the most random things too, like how she “told the tv that I hate it because it doesn’t work” (forgets which buttons..), or “needs to tell [our puppy] how bad he is when he barks.” Why is he bad? He isn’t! He’s a puppy!) Can’t remember where she has placed things or which buttons to push on her dishwasher. Says nothing tastes good. Has lost about 40 lbs in 3 months. Can’t remember my nephews’ names.

Is this dementia? She won’t see a doctor, but complains about how much her Part B coverage is and has been paying for the top tier care for 10 years now, but has never seen a doctor in that time. So weird.