Does this sound like dementia?

[mellowyellow1]

Firstly I apologise if I'm way off the mark here. I am trying to understand what is happening to my Mum and I can't seem to get a definite diagnosis for her.

She has been in and out of mental health assessment units all year. It started with her becoming very high and she couldn't stop talking. She was talking every 4 seconds throughout the whole day, couldn't relax and kept repeating phrases and numbers. Also saying inappropriate things to strangers about their appearance and things.

Now she is in a mental health unit and it's like she has had a complete personality transplant as she is so drugged up. Her vision is going, she is unable to concentrate on anything and has lost all enthusiasm for life. Also she is scared she is going to harm her husband (I know she won't and she knows that it's wrong to even think it).

Add to this she is relatively young only 61, the GP mentioned something about the frontal lobe months ago but now the mental health team have just put it down to a mood disorder.

Can anyone shed any light if they have experienced something similar? I don't know if I'm looking for something that's not there but just want her to get the right help

[FruitCider]

Hi OP, sorry to hear you are experiencing this. Has your mum had a CT head scan? It's meant to be standard procedure when diagnosing someone with a mental health condition.

[mellowyellow1]

Thanks for replying Fruit. She has had an MRI and a CT scan I think but nothing was found. She also has mentioned a pressure in her head which is better with the anti psychotic drugs. Not sure if this is related.

[stayathomegardener]

Dosnt sound like dementia from my personal experience based on your description of constant talking.
When DM started with it she went very quiet initially as she processed her confusion.
Sounds very distressing for you.

[Brontebiscuits]

Has your mum got a mental health diagnosis other than mood disorder? If the CT and MRI were clear it's less likely to be dementia but can be missed if it's very early stages. Have the unit done any memory tests such as the ACE III? Severe depression can cause slow cognition and affect memory in people however. You could also ask the nurses/doctors about what drugs she is on and whether they may be causing her to be over-sedated.

[PacificDogwod]

I don't think that any of us will be able to even guess at a diagnosis if her doctors/medical team have not been able to.
So sorry you and her are going through this - it is so hard when somebody so close to you changes in such a distressing way.

I suppose it could be dementia (scans can be normal or only show age related changes) or has something like bipolar disorder been mentioned??

[mellowyellow1]

Yes bipolar has been mentioned and a memory test was done and showed slight memory changes but this could be down to general anxiety and the drugs she is on.

Thanks for replies and sorry for anyone experiencing dementia with a loved one must be awful

[AbrarAhmad31]

Let me briefly tell you that there are multiple forms of dementia - alzheimer’s disease being the most common one that accounts for 40 to 75% of dementia cases and is the sixth leading cause of death in United States. Additionally, dementia and its types have common signs with some variations. Let’s start with the most common signs of dementia most commonly seen in patients at the early stages of the disease. They start experiencing subtle memory loss, mood instability such as immediate occurrences of maniac (laugh) and depression (sadness) episodes, and have trouble with listening and explaining things to other people, communicational obstructions to be exact. They also segregate their selves from social gatherings and unions, face difficulty in performing daily chores and also experience muscle impairment. Additionally, some people fail to converse with other people because they fail to keep up the pace and comparatively take longer to process the coming words and repeat the same question over and over again. Most of the cases showed that, dementia patients start segregating their selves and start living alone because they could not keep up with the lives of normal people. They just are not up for the adaptation to change. In one of the form of dementia, which is Lewy Body dementia, probable signs appear to be sleeplessness. Patients experience insomnia which leads to mood swings. It has been seen that they fail to keep tracks of roads and lose their tracking skills as well. In case of Alzheimer’s, a patient the most common signs are memory loss and forgetfulness. In some cases, it has been observed that people with Alzheimer’s segregate their selves from others. Additionally, they experience complete memory loss and trouble understanding visual images and spatial relationships, lack the judgement skill and a complete withdrawal from work or social activities. One most commonly observed is the forgetfulness and inability to retrace steps. There is another type of dementia called Parkinson’s characterized as uncontrollable movement of body parts such a shaking limbs and fingers. It has been observed that patients experience writing and speech changes, their ability to respond fails badly and they lose posture and balance. One of the common sign is bradykinesia characterized as slow body movement. One thing to keep in mind before labelling someone as a dementia patient is that forgetfulness and memory loss do no really mean a person has dementia because memory loss and forgetfulness are a normal parts of aging. But if any severity has been observed in these signs, a patient definitely requires a professional advice and consultation. There is no cookie approach to cure dementia but if you observe such changings or signs in your loved ones do not take it for granted before it gets too late.
Reference: bit.ly/2e5hYgU

[OhTheRoses]

I don't know lovely. I know one person who had dementia/alzheimers and one with Parkinsons/dementia, one my gran and the other my best friend's mum. Neither similar to your mum.

I hope you get a diagnosis and feel for you x