Forgot she has eaten? Several times daily.
Sometimes wonders if she just woke up? Often.
Says she will go to AL, we arrange for her to go to AL, tells a friend she’s going, then doesn’t remember. Several times.
Didn’t remember having a 25 min phone conversation with a friend a day earlier? This is new.
Can’t figure out a calendar anymore?
Repeats stories, often with information I’ve never heard of.
But can remember Biden is president, can read a clock, names/people from a long time ago, stories from the past, can use a water kettle…
She has COPD (no O2 necessary), left ventricular hypertrophy, atrial fibrillation, depression.
Something new about her memory seems to getting strange faster than I thought it would but then she pulls out a memory that is spot on.
- UTI
- dehydration
- vitamin deficiency
- new thyroid problem
- over- or under-medicating (if she is on any prescriptions and has been administering them herself)
- oxygen levels for her COPD
- diabetes
- high blood pressure
- brain tumor
All these can create symptoms that are similar to the memory/confusion of dementia. Most of these are treatable and can return her functionality if it is not dementia. Most common types of dementia are diagnosed by process of eliminating other causes (some can be diagnosed by imaging).
Both my MIL and a cousin had their symptoms worsened due to inaccurate dosaging of their thyroid medication. Dosage is prescribed based on body weight. Weight loss caused an over-medication effect, which impacted their memory, which caused them to be in an over-medication loop until someone eventually intervened. Just an example of why your LO should have a thorough physical before coming to any conclusions about dementia.
https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/symptoms-and-diagnosis/how-dementia-progresses/early-stages-dementia
It sounds like your mom has moved from the early phase of dementia into a more moderate level, to me. Dementia is not linear, however, in that the symptoms/behaviors change from day to day.
Here is a link to a great 33 page booklet which is a free download for you to read, written in plain English, which I have found to be the best of all the reading material on the subject:
Understanding the Dementia Experience, by Jennifer Ghent-Fuller
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/210580
What I have also found with dementia (my mother suffered from it, starting out with mild and moving onto advanced dementia for quite some time before she passed in Feb of 2022) is that a drastic step DOWN can occur at a moment's notice. Your mom can be going along at a certain level for X amount of time, and then WHAM, she'll take a big step down in her cognizance, suddenly speaking to deceased relatives or insisting there are people in her room talking to her, or the TV characters, etc. Getting paranoid or insisting you're stealing $$ from her, things like that. Or she'll get super hungry all the time or her appetite will vanish, or chronic UTIs will pop up out of nowhere, more trips to the ER, things like that. No rhyme or reason to the changes you'll see in her, making the whole syndrome particularly tough to deal with, especially behaviorally. I watched mom be either horribly depressed and crying or super happy & laughing; little in between. Either pretty coherent or telling confabulated stories that she was living in a different hotel room every night that had HER furniture in it.
Wishing you the best of luck with an ever changing situation.
I know of several elderly people with diagnosed dementia. Each person is different. But basically: short-term memory bad; long-term memory better.
“Something new about her memory seems to getting strange faster”
If there’s a sudden acceleration in decline, be careful. Get it checked out.
Just one example:
One elderly person I know: the caregiver forgot to give vitamin B12 for some weeks! This can result in acceleration of mental decline, memory problems, confusion. B12 was quickly given. In this particular case, the elderly person’s cognitive ability returned to their “normal” level after some weeks.