Dementia and cancer diagnosis: Has anyone had an experience with this and what are your thoughts about telling or not telling a person they have it?

A very wise geriatrics doctor told me years ago "if you aren't going to do the treatment, don't do the test".

Don't put mom through a biopsy if you aren't going to pursue treatment. Get palliative care for her and then hospice.

If you know she has metastatic lung cancer and she's 89 with dementia, why are you doing a biopsy? I assume it's a needle aspiration biopsy but even so, what's the point? Maybe it's time to have palliative care come on board. Doctors will keep going - diagnosing, talking about tests and treatments - unless you tell them to stop on behalf of your mother.

My mum has incurable cancer and dementia, I haven't told her because she would focus on it as she gets obsessed with things

The doctors wanted me to tell her but I can't see any good reasons to, I want to help my mum have as much quality of life that she can. Who would gain anything from telling her

I wouldn't tell her of a cancer diagnosis, especially since she may not remember it anyway. I wouldn't tell anyone else, either. I'd make sure that family members were seen, though, in the last days, without blabbing what's going on. Once you start telling people someone has cancer or even anything else, they have advice. For dad, someone said, "They're curing cancer in the Bahamas now, did you know that?" They thought I should take him there. He was 92. Not doing it, and it wasn't true.

Other people chimed in with ridiculous ideas. A friend's family thought she needed to change her diet to organic. The cancer had already eaten up a good bit of her body by that time, and no food was going to help, only chemo, which didn't have a chance of working and didn't.

It's really not necessary to broadcast others' health care info. It's no one else's business and opens you up to a bunch of worthless opinions that do nothing but stir things up at a difficult time.

In simple terms "no". I did not tell my Dad when he had pancreatic cancer. All you are doing is making matters worse for them. Do not put her thru a biopsy either.

If you are not going to put her through the struggle and pain of surgeries and chemo, I would not tell her. If it were my mom, I wouldn't even do the biopsy. What would be the point? Does hospice require it?

You say she is an anxious person...no need light that fire by telling her something she can't really process or do anything about. Hospice can make her comfortable as things progress.

I have also chosen not to tell my Mom regarding her demetia/Alzheimers and bone cancer. She wouldn't understand or remember but the times I could tell her she would be very upset. I see no reason to have what time she has in distress. She also has macular degeneration and that is a big distresser for her. She doesn't understand why her vision is failing. She already has enough stress to deal with.

My dad had Stage 3 colon cancer and moderate dementia (at the time). He went through surgery removing 1/3 of his colon. Afterwards he had chemo every other week for 6 months and had to wear a pump for the chemo for 3 days. The first night he had the pump on, he somehow managed to take it off (very scary). This was all during the Covid shutdown so it was a nightmare as he lived in Assisted Living and I wasn't able to go in and check on him. Long story short, he went into remission but the cancer came back - in less than a year. He was Stage 4 and his Oncologist gave him 6 months to live. He was sleeping at the appointment when the doctor told us. All the chemo wrecked havoc on his body. He was diagnosed with heart failure prior to that appointment and I already had him on in-home hospice. I never told him because I knew he wouldn't remember as his Dementia had progressed to severe and I didn't want to upset him over and over. He didn't remember having surgery or chemo either. In addition, any time he would go to the doctor, dentist, etc. he would become even more confused and agitated. He died 5 months later.

I forgot to mention, his regular doctor wanted him to get a pace maker after his heart failure diagnosis which my family and I refused to do. He wouldn't have survived the surgery.

Here is a link on what to expect from the various ways to have a lung biopsy:

https://www.webmd.com/lung/lung-biopsy-what-to-expect

Once you read this, you'll see that no lung biopsy is a good idea for an 89 yo, even those that don't require general anesthesia.

And no, no mention of the C word should be made to mom at all.

Best of luck.

It would be cruel to tell her. I would NOT do the biopsy. My mom has mild/moderate dementia and I would not tell her if she has any serious health issues. She is 80 and not doing so great. I mean, she's OK, but has a bunch of little issues, besides the dementia, and is generally not terribly happy. So, beyond comfort measures I plan on doing nothing to extend her life. Why extend a life that is just going to get sadder and sadder as the dementia progresses?

Switch your mindset to palliative and/or hospice type of care for the rest of her life. I wouldn't want to know. And I wouldn't want to spend my remaining time being shuttled to the doctor for tests and/or treatments. It's stressful and unnecessary, IMHO.

Best of luck.