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Also last year, my brother said that she was "losing her memory" because of certain things that she said to him. She also said something to my uncle that wasn't right. I just feel that the move was a little too much for her. She sold her house in 1 day and had 30 days to move out. My brother helped her with the move but there was no rhyme or reason to the packing. Thus I feel that a lot of her things that were in the computer room are in storage. I just don't feel that my brother really cares either way.

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The only real way to find out is to take her for a neuropsych evaluation.

When my mother started panicking about every little thing, my brother thought our mom was just having a "pity party".

We moved her temporarily to an Independent Living apartment and the doctor and psychiatrist who saw her there insisted that we get her a neuropsych evaluation. This showed that she had developed MCI (it also turned out that the imaging they did as part of the evaluation showed that she'd had a stroke in the past, which we did not know).
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Judy79 Mar 2019
I just wonder if the more that she gets to know people from this area, it would help her more. She does wear hearing aids and at times I think that her hearing is going. But then at times, I think that she has selective hearing. :) My brother upset her so much last year that one day she drove to my job because he upset her real bad. And that wasn't normal for her. I had her come with me and talk privately to a doctor since her doctor wasn't available. That doctor was thinking by the way that she was acting that she might have dementia. I wonder if that doctor even knows about MCI. It will be interesting what her neuro psych and neurology appt shows. Just hope that it shows old age for her. She has been looking at pictures from the past and letters to her about my dad after he died. Thanks for you thoughts on this. I hope that I remember to come back here and let people know the results when we find out.
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For a conclusive answer you need at least a neurological exam with brain scans and a mini mental evaluation. Depending on what those test show, the full neuropsych evaluation may be ordered.

As a lay person's rule of thumb, normal aging is usually a slow down in speed but not a total blank. For example, you cannot remember someone's name when you want to use it in a sentence, but a couple of minutes later the name comes to you. With MCI's short term memory losses, you don't remember the name now or anytime in the next hour.

My mother scored 26 of 30 on the mini (27 is considered normal) and had a clear scans although they did show some small veins in the brain which have been associated with cognitive declines. The exam was prompted because Mom went to the bank to open a new checking account - forgetting she had already opened a new account at that branch just 2 weeks before. The neurologist said her brain was still thinking well but the memory problems meant the brain no longer had all the information needed.

Moving can make the memory problems seem much worse because everything is now in a new location and older established memories are not useful anymore. Your mother may be very stressed out when realizing she can't find anything. I suggest trying to organize things within cabinets and drawers the as close to the way they were in her home as possible. You might also consider adding some basic labels on cabinets/drawers (dishes, flour, towels, sweaters, tops, etc.) Because the contents of my kitchen cabinets was a close match to my mother's organization placing the "flour" label allowed my mother to turn to that cabinet for salt, spices, sugar, etc. that we both stored with the flour.
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Judy79 Mar 2019
I guess that I don't want to end up hearing that she might have MCI,which isn't the end of the world either. She knows where she has put things. Her main thing at the beginning was writing checks. Which my brother has done for her at times. Currently, can't find her checkbook and I am pretty sure that he has it but I can't prove it without getting into an argument with her. I talked to my mom and she doesn't want to write checks anymore. I am going to show her how to pay bills online like she did last year. Trusting that will help her remember what she did when she was in her house. With my mom's mini, she scored a 27, I'm pretty sure. So she was on the low end. Her thinking is clear and I am there to help her whenever she needs my help. She is only 5 min away from us as of now. She doesn't have anyone to talk to at her apartment complex but there is our neighbor that is 77 and she is a widow also. Going to try and get them together and get to know each other. Hope that would help her out also. I will try and remember to let you all know what I find out.
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I sense there is bad blood between you and your brother since you say nothing good about him in your posts. I wonder if that could be upsetting your mom and she is trying in her own way to make peace between you. I know for a fact that if my kids were at odds with each other, it would be very upsetting. She might be trying to tell each of you what she thinks you want to hear and instead she’s coming off sounding confused. If you are speaking ill of your brother to her, stop. Even little remarks can upset her. I’m sure she’s already feeling stressed from the super quick move. If you have access to the storage locker, ask her what she’d like of her things and go get a few.

The only way to truly truly tell the yes or no of MCI is testing by a doctor. Stress can do weird things to your brain and memory. I have personal experience with this.
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Judy79 Mar 2019
I compliment my brother as much as I can. I even tell her that he helped her a lot when she was at the house. He even helped her move to the apartment. Although there was no rhyme or reason to the moving. He,and his wife, helped her get rid of a lot of things and take to goodwill that she didn't need. So it's not that he hasn't done anything for her. It's just that he said that she was "losing her memory". This was 3 months after she moved after 20 years of living in house by herself. I have even talked to her about independent living at a place closeby and she wasn't against it either. She just misses talking to people Where she is, there isn't really anyone to talk to her. We do take her to church weekly and she likes the church that we are attending. She is planning on changing her membership from where she was to our church. This was of her own decision. Basically, he is hurting himself by keeping distance from me. I even apologized to him but I guess that I really hurt him. He didn't talk to my parents for 2 years because he was hurt. I can live without him, which I have pretty much done that for many years already. His wife doesn't help matters either. It's a long story about our family. And a lot of hurt too. But my mom seems to be a real trouper about things. So very proud of her. It's slow for her in moving but she is doing the best that she can.
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