Follow
Share

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dementia_praecox
the gist of this article is eerily implying that dementia exists sometimes from a young age and is rarely ever treated effectively or cured . in fact for over 80 years the terms dementia and schitzo were interchangeable . my mother certainly suffered from bipolar all her life and in late stage dementia a schitzo disorder reared up complete with paranoid delusions and hallucinations .
so if you wonder if your demented elder has always been nuts , id say probably ..
relax and enjoy the ride -- its largely hereditary..

This discussion has been closed for comment. Start a New Discussion.
Find Care & Housing
Relax and enjoy the ride -- you can't do anything about it whether it is hereditary or not.

My husband had paranoid delusion and hallucinations early in his dementia journey, as do many persons with Lewy Body Dementia. Often hallucinations are the first clue to family that something is wrong. No one suggested a schizo disorder, and there was NO previous suggestion of such a mental illness.

No doubt that people with mental disorders develop dementia such as people without mental disorders do. And some dementia symptoms are similar to symptoms of other disorders. After all, they are all related to a malfunctioning in the brain.

I don't think Coy was always nuts. I don't think that my mother was always nuts. As I read about some of the people being cared for by members here, ya, it sounds like some of them did have mental disorders from an early age.

Mental illness is often not treated effectively and seldom cured. There are many frontiers in medical science yet to be crossed.
(3)
Report

Is the plaque on the teeth the same stuff as plaque in the arteries? That would be really scary...
(0)
Report

Or the plaques that form in the brain?
(0)
Report

Sometimes I wonder if Mad Cow has affected some people. Sure they recall the tainted beef, but there has to be some of it that got eaten by unsuspecting consumers. Gotta wonder....
(0)
Report

people in the the uk dont have to worry about mad cow , turns out they were eating horse meat all along . ( chuckle )
im with dusty on her observations of dementia . my mom and aunt showed exascerbated levels of thoughts and behavior that was always irrational .
their dad was bats*it crazy . talked incessantly for as long as i knew him , even when everyone had left the room .
(0)
Report

No, the plaques are composed of all sorts of gunge - sticky sugars on your teeth, lipids in your blood, abnormal proteins in the brain. Ain't we got fun!

Pam I wonder about CJD, too; especially in the case of my lovely friend's lovely husband, who was not only diagnosed with every form of dementia going but also, in his young adulthood, was a dairy farmer.

I don't want to fuel any conspiracy theories, and I have zero support for this from any of my scientifically trained loved ones, but I suspect that eating burgers had sod all to do with it, and that over-liberal use of insecticides and pesticides a heck of a lot more. I notice they've changed an awful lot of formulae since the eighties.
(1)
Report

And nay, Captain, I don't find that remotely amusing.
(1)
Report

i dont think dementia is on the rise , only being isolated and better understood .
only in the last few years has it been understood to be a terminal condition .
both of my female relatives had / have a diagnosic printout that shows disease in every organ , why would the brain be in perfect order in the presence of all this mayhem ? ie ; renal failure , poor liver function , coronary disease , arthritis , diabetes mellitis , copd , etc ..
why would a 55 yr old man ( myself ) with stage 3 liver fibrosis drink a beer anyway ?
my dad died at 72 after a lifetime of clean living and in fact preserving himself for an imagined afterlife . im inevitably going to die but im going to have lived first ..
(1)
Report

The short answer is sometimes, but not always. MIL has been crazy as a rat in a drainpipe her entire life, and now that she's got dementia, she's crazy as a hundred rats in a drainpipe. Rats that have been up all night smoking crystal meth.

Her mother had schizophrenia, which she got, according to MIL, from being hit by a taxi while crossing a street in London.

MIL refused to believe me when I told her that getting mowed down by a taxi might give a person a traumatic brain injury with symptoms that mimic schizophrenia, but it doesn't cause schizophrenia. Given that there's lots of bipolar disease and other kinds of mental illness in her family, it seems highly likely that MIL's mother was already ill when the taxi hit her.

My father had Alzheimer's and HIS mother was bipolar. Dad was always nervous and depressed, as well as being a high functioning alcoholic but he didn't start showing symptoms of dementia until he was almost 80. None of his siblings developed dementia, as far as I know, although one brother was very peculiar. However, his mental issues could have come from being on a troop ship that was blown up in the Pacific during WWII. Floating in the ocean for four days while clinging to a piece of wreckage would tend to make anybody a little nuts.

I think dementia has lots of different causes, and there's no reason why someone couldn't have a mental illness that gets worse with age, and then develop some form of dementia.

.
(2)
Report

cracked out rats in a drainpipe . visuals surely dont get better than that ..
(0)
Report

I read about a long term study of nuns, some of whom developed dementia and some who didn't. This study lasted most of the lifetime of the nuns. They were asked to write essays about themselves when they were in their twenties. The nuns who later developed dementia wrote essays that were lists of facts about themselves, such as where and when they attended school. The nuns who didn't develop dementia wrote essays about the events that inspired them to become nuns, how they felt about things, a lot more imaginative and less rigid and mechanical. Even at that early age, their brains functioned differently.
(3)
Report

so the nuns who were more philosophical and analytical didnt develop dementia .. ( ? )
i can almost believe that because i notice people who operate purely out of habit have their brain shut off and in fact act almost retarded upon a closer look .
closedminded and trying to avoid having to think . not leadership material by any means ..
(0)
Report

Is that right, moving? HOW interesting! Ok, who isn't looking nervous and wondering how they would have approached the essay..?
(0)
Report

id write em a book . i think my poor va phsyc goes straight for the vodka bottle when my back hits the door .
(0)
Report

Interesting.....there have been comments that spraying Agent Orange in Vietnam could have been a concern for my husband's Alzheimer....that was early when Agent Orange was plentifully used...My husband flew right behind the planes spraying Agent Orange....He flew a Huey Helicopter...those helicop-
ters had very little protection and that Agent Orange was easily breathed in..marymember
(1)
Report

Agent Orange was so bad that even vets who were only involved in transport, and not in Vietnam have been covered by the VA. I have a friend who served in Germany and he is fully disabled. Mary I hope you have been in contact with the VA, they are no longer denying the effects, but covering them.
(1)
Report

Thank you pamsteqman......I've tried to make my husband realize Agent Orange is a likely possibility of his Alzheimers. He denies it..but he needs to realize it is most likely true..marymember
(1)
Report

An old friend served in Viet Nam died of brain cancer two years ago at the age of 56. The docs thought it was caused by Agent Orange.
(0)
Report

Mum has dementia but its the first case in any family history brought on by her diabetes. So its not just hereditary! i think the longer we care for someone with dementia the nuttier we become! i know i wonder if im really normal after this stress still peeing straight into the toilet bowl so happy days!
(0)
Report

youll get it when an elder deteriorates and dies in front of your eyes, dusty .
they go insane first . not eccentric , stark raving , heartbreaking INSANE ..
(4)
Report

thought you were going to bed, kaz .
ill take an ambien in about an hour . lets hook up in our dreams and break some laws ..
(0)
Report

and yes kaz, itll bend your head as a carer ..
condition yourself . aunt edna told me several weeks ago that she was three hundred years old . " ok " , " i brought ya biscuits and gravy " .
"eat your f - in breakfast methusilah " ..
(2)
Report

Dusty, so are you saying that our loved ones' dementia is a figment of our imaginations, or is the result of money-grubbing medical practitioners? Interesting theory, but not terribly helpful to the caregiver who deals with it.
(0)
Report

If there is no such thing as dementia, then there is only schizophrenia?
(0)
Report

Let's see, schizophrenia used to be called "dementia praecox," which means dementia at an early age. Didn't they used to call Alzheimer's and similar diseases "senile dementia." I guess at one time people thought they might be the same type things setting in at different times. Dementia means madness. It was such a simpler time when everything could be lumped together like this.

I'm glad we don't live in an earlier time when people thought the only way of curing madness was to cast out demons. When the demons couldn't be cast out, what did they do? I don't know. It seems the only options would be to lock someone up or banish them. We have come a long way in the last few decades. I can still remember when mentally handicapped or ill people were institutionalized.
(2)
Report

Jessie, we go from one extreme to another. They used to lock up those with dementia, you are correct. If lucky these people had family members to look after them. Now we just do not have the facilities necessary to care for those that need it. The funding is not available in this country to provide care for those mentally disabled. It is that if you cannot see a problem, then there must not be one. A figment of our imaginations?
(1)
Report

Jessie, I knew an old lady named "Aunt Ruthie" who came to family parties. She would sit quietly in a chair, rock a little and stare off into space. After seeing this at several gatherings, I asked my sister-in-law what the story was with Aunt Ruthie. SIL said "Oh. Her house burned down and all six of her children died in the fire. Years ago." Dementia? Schizophrenia? Does it really matter which one????
(1)
Report

i cant think of madness without remembering an interview i saw with steven king years ago . he was asked if his far out horror writing caused him to feel near the edge of sanity at times . his reply ; " i think we all hang by a thin thread " ..
good answer , id agree ..
i think my next visit with behavioral health at the va will be a little shorter than usual . i love the gal but shes blurting out simplistic generalities about complicated stuff ..
i always wondered what would happen when i became older than the authorities and other figures of power in the community -- now i know . you wanna spread your middle and index fingers as wide as possible and jab them in the eyeballs with em ..
(2)
Report

pam,
rocking , with or without a rocking chair sometimes indicates an opiate addiction . no offense intended at all but these meds used to be easy to obtain in this country .
i find hundreds of antique bottles in basements of old homes in this county . every dam one of them were some kind of morphine based elixer . we havent progressed . like booze , the government is straight up murdering people to take the drug industry and its proceeds for themselves .
one of the hepc meds im taking is 1000.00 a pill . despite the high cost of specialty meds in this country , the bulk of pharms profit still comes from 75 cent benzos , and opiates .. pot gets a wink and a nod now that state govts are manning the cash registers .
no wonder half the world hates the usa . for money we'll play make believe all day long ..
(0)
Report

you remind me of my youngest sister , dusty . when she goes on a rant you start looking around for anything that might help . booze , tranquilizers , ball bat , fire hose , etc ..
just kidding as always . you make a good point about shoddy medicine . my mom complained about pain in her hand once and a practitioner nearly doubled her scrip of hydro 10 ' s .
the next doc flipped out when he saw it , said it was enough to " hurt " her and reduced it by 50 % . my son walked in the front door of the hospital and told a quack that his dad was a jerk ( myself ) and walked out with 60 blue zans a month .
thats a real outrage by any standards .
(1)
Report

This discussion has been closed for comment. Start a New Discussion.
Start a Discussion
Subscribe to
Our Newsletter