When does forgetfulness become dementia?

Cognitive decline can come in many forms. My father lacks capacity, he lives in a parallel universe dated about 1950, and has an idiosyncratic understanding of time. But the other week I told him I was going to check my car was locked, and when I returned 10mins later, he greeted me with “and was it locked?”.

Attendance Allowance is not means tested.

FWIW FIL has a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s - he can’t remember his home address, can’t remember where we are going for more than 5 minutes, couldn’t be trusted for 5 mins on the computer. But he can still beat all of us hands down at cards.

The first two are means tested, aren’t they?

You apply for AA by describing all the needs. This is done just as easily without a dementia diagnosis. So if life is being impacted, people shouldn’t be deterred from applying for AA because they don’t have a diagnosis.

@NetZeroZealot remember all the little amendments to his life that he may have made to cope, and describe the need that gave rise to those. Does he make notes for things most people would remember easily? Would he take medicines if nobody reminded him? “A need that is met is still a need”

For a relative, I noticed what could at first be a blip or memory loss - but there were too many of them happening, and I realised that something more fundamental was wrong. Examples such as -

Getting lost in a journey and then unable to follow directions given over the phone.

Handing over an envelope as a gift (whcih should have contained a celebration card / cheque) without realising the envelope was in fact empty. The card etc had been left on the kitchen counter.

Ordering pudding in a restaurant, when the waiter turned up with it 5 - 10 mins later, saying- "what's this, who ordered this ?"

That was my dad’s diagnosis. On the basis of the short test only

I’d agree with not pushing it. If the person really can’t remember, it’s just bashing your head against a brick wall and will achieve nothing except frustration/upset.

One thing I forgot to say re FiL in the early stages. Because we were then utterly clueless about dementia, we didn’t pick up on it.

FiL was staying with us since we were all going to a BiL’s very smart wedding. Just as we were about to leave in taxis, all dressed up - FiL was in a dinner jacket - he said, ‘Where are we going again?’

We did think it very odd, but didn’t really give it another thought until other signs appeared later.

We are in the process of doing this.

It's so stressful
To us all

Getting AA can also mean he'll be entitled to pension credit, housing benefit and council tax reduction.

Diagnosis is helpful financially. If he needs support you might be able to get attendance allowance for him ( even if your mum is doing the support) once you have attendance allowance, if he is diagnosed with dementia, a clinician can decide it counts as severe mental impairment and you can apply for a reduction in council tax.

Even people who need help but do not get any (because they live alone) will qualify.

Yes, it doesn't matter who assists him.
He will qualify.

Read through the application form.
For example, if he takes longer to get dressed than he used to, he might well qualify.
That's just an example.
If he had trouble turning over in bed, he might qualify.
It would be worth your looking through the form.

People who are becoming forgetful, for whatever reason, generally qualify.

Such as cooking, getting dressed, washing, going to the lavatory, struggling with incontinence.
Etc.

It's for people over pension age who struggle with daily living activities.

https://www.gov.uk/attendance-allowance

DM has recently been diagnosed with MCI, in spite of having a very poor score on the MMSE. I was surprised tbh - the definition for MCI seems to be cognitive decline that's worse than expected for the person's age, but not enough to cause a significant impact on daily life and work. Whereas I think mum's cognition absolutely does affect her daily life, and there's no way on earth she'd be capable of working now. It worries me that she might have dementia but undiagnosed, as the time that medication apparently works best is when it's in its earliest stages.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER that's just like my mum. She doesn't remember seeing the doctors so it didn't happen. Ditto being prescribed hearing aids - she threw them away when dad died because she thought they were his as she couldn't remember. I pity her neighbours she has the tv so loud but when she doesn't hear the phone it must be the phone that is faulty.

My DF has mild cognitive function, we're going through the memory clinic thing atm, they said the same, that it's good to be in the system in case you need help further down the line and they can deteriorate rapidly sadly.

@olderbutwiser , from experience, even when a diagnosis is made relatively early, the person is liable to a) forget, and/or b) refuse to accept that there’s anything wrong with them.
My DM was told by her GP that she had Alzheimer’s, and apparently accepted it, but had completely forgotten by the time she got home maybe 15 minutes later, and just became angry if we tried to remind her.

FiL was much the same - unable to accept that there was anything wrong with him.
In both cases (IMO) the ‘denial’ was not denial as such, but simply down to the fact that at any given moment, they couldn’t remember that they could never remember anything. (If that makes sense.)