Hello,
My mother, 57, was diagnosed with dementia. The diagnosis took us by complete surprise as she was “normal” one day and the next morning just rambling, restless, hallucinating, paranoid, and talking about dead relatives. She has an extensive cardio history, with heart failure. She is a warrior and always has been, it just stinks she has to go through this now. Not fair.
From what I have read it seems her dementia is progressing rapidly, it been only 1 month and everything is 180.
She believes my dad passed away, and the person she see is someone impersonating him. Has anyone experienced this?
If you haven't, take her to doctor and get a full work up with labs. If you have home health care, you can ask doctor to order labs and the home health nurse can draw blood in the home and submit for testing. If you have to take her in, call doctor and ask him to order the urine test now and you can deliver the urine to the lab for testing.
If she really has dementia and the brain is no longer in our current time/day, it's very possible she's at a time when husband was a much younger man and looks nothing like the guy in front of her.
i work with dementia clients. It’s important to remember that to her it is real. You need to go along with it as if it’s true If she ask a question concerning him just agree and make up a reason. Like “where is he?” Say he went to the grocery store. To tell her the truth will only cause frustration on her part
Sheila
Why I ask is that my own Mom (in her 90's) went from someone being fairly sharp to someone in the late stages of dementia, all happening within 24 hours. For my Mom it happened very quickly after she had a fall where she had head trauma. My Mom could no longer walk even though her brain was telling her she could. Mom thought my Dad was her brother. And my Mom thought the Aides at the nursing home were me, calling them by my name.
Thank you for the welcome!
we took her to the hospital, where they did all the test. A CT was done on her head, there was some bleeding in the frontal lobe but while in the hospital it had gone down.
The doctors did not think it was enough to have caused her altered mental state or symptoms. So we are unsure if had any other falls.
So sorry about your mother, she is so young.
Thank you, this disease is too much. I feel for her, I cannot begin to even discuss the amount of times shes been to the hospital due to cardiovascular issues and so on. Her whole life has been spent fighting against her body to live.
Thank you again
Maybe your mom could benefit from adult daycare, where she would be apart from your dad during the day and he could get a break. Though perhaps he still works? You should also discuss the likely progression of the disease with her medical team and start planning in the likely event that she needs to go into memory care. She could live decades longer and dementia is progressive. Neither you nor your dad should sacrifice the rest of your lives dealing with this, given that there is no way to cure her condition.
I wish you the best and want to say your parents are lucky to have your help.
My family are from Pakistan, and following cultural norms I do not think we could have someone else take care of her. I know it would help, but she is aware of her children and house and such, just paranoid about other things.
There is also a sort of language barrier, she understands English but recently reverted to speaking her mother tongue.
We are trying to get her to neurologist at the memory center at John’s Hopkins but appointment is not until few months from now.
I should mention, that due to her cardiac history, which is far too much to discuss really. It is confirmed she has narrowing of vessels lead to the brain and through her body, this is due to FH.
She is a fighter, always has been. It is just so sad to see go through this.
This isn't making a lot of sense to me in that this occurred almost overnight.
I must assume she is thoroughly evaluated for stroke, brain tumor, electrolyte imbalance, UTI?
She has seen a neuro-psyc person?
If your mother has dementia this severe that she cannot recognize a family member she has virtually gone from 1-1000 ovenight, and at this age that is unusual. I would be getting in a really good second opinion for neuro-psychiatric exams, MRIs, scans, pretty much anything else they can think of. She is very young to say overnight she now is completely in the last stages of dementia.
Again, as an RN I am having a problem with accepting this.
Lewy Body Dementia is the diagnosis. Neurologist saw and did not deny the dementia and her symptoms. We can talk her for test since she is extremely paranoid about things like the end of times, evil beings, and stuff. She will cover herself, be aggressive and not let us near her. Its been so sad, difficult, and crazy ever since.
zyprexa, patches and ativan have helped in the last few days with aggressive behavior and restlessness
https://www.healthline.com/health/capgras-syndrome#What-is-Capgas-syndrome
Wishing you the best of luck with a difficult situation.
And typically when someone as young as your mom is diagnosed with dementia, it is early onset Alzheimer's which is the slowest progressing of all the dementias and can last for 20+ years, so the fact that your mom has had such a sudden change in mental status tells me that you need to take her to different doctors to get to the bottom of what is actually going on as it doesn't sound like dementia at all.
Please find a doctor for your mom that will seek out the truth as to what is going on, as a dementia diagnosis while not impossible is highly unlikely especially one as progressive as she supposedly has.
She was admitted to the hospital and they test for all these things. Everything came back negative/normal, and concluded lewy body dementia.
We saw an outpatient neurologist and they pretty much agreed to the diagnosis, gave her patches, and zyprexa..
Its been crazy to say the least.
maybe tell her something like dad is fine and had to go on a work trip or something like that. Don’t try and convince her of reality because she doesn’t live in our reality anymore. So so sorry
its been difficult because he lives with us and she thinks it someone else. To the point he had move to basement, I feel so bad for him.