When do people usually get ‘dementia’ - IF they’re going to get it?

Makes me wonder if it wouldn’t be cost effective to have daily social hubs that ww take older people to. Surely it wouldn’t be cost save money in long term care.

Pretty much all the known risk factors apart from genetic links increase with age - hearing loss, deteriorating eyesight, social isolation, reduced physical activity, physical illness, hospital admissions, etc. So your risk just keeps going up as you get older.

It’s hard if social isolation is a predictor as as you age it’s so much harder to join things

Such an interesting thread to demonstrate how people don't even bother with reading the OP!

It's about the likliehood of developing dementia when you've already reached very old age (in OP's mother's case 88) without it. Not simply "when did your relative develop dementia?"

I have a wonderful friend who is younger than me who was diagnosed with alzheimers at 59. It's not relevant to this thread.

I don’t think there is such a thing really
my mum was diagnosed 10yrs ago at 69 with Alzheimer’s with hindsight there were signs before that (although she did all the things you are supposed to do to prevent dementia- active brain she was a mathematician & musician , walked everyday, ate well, didn’t drink or take drugs, wasn’t overweight)
Now coming to the end of this terrible journey at 79, she’s at end stage now & mainly sleeping.
However there is a lady in mums dementia care home who is 99 who was only diagnosed a couple of years ago
and she’s only got minor decline, I can still play domino’s with her & have a conversation. She’ll probably still be pretty good at her imminent 100th birthday.
My gran got vascular dementia after a mini stroke at 85
The shitty part of this disease is that it’s unpredictable & affects different people differently and there is little you can do for most people who are affected except delay it.
We live longer than ever before so it’s more obvious because aging is a factor but apart from that it’s hard to pinpoint at the moment.

My Grandmother is 77, we noticed a dramatic change in her behavior early last year. She became pretty vile to everyone, especially if she didn’t get her own way with something. She joined myself and my partner on holiday last summer and she had me in tears almost every night, then told my long term partner whom I have a child with he wasn’t part of our family.
things escalated dramatically when we got home. She became forgetful, paranoid, anxious, aggressive. Started to hallucinate and hear things. She had a very long stay in an Elderly mental health unit where they suspected delirium caused by long term self neglect of her diabetes ( she was very stubborn and refused for many years to take insulin when she was told during every appointment she was now type 1 and it was critical she needed to start insulin). She was discharged still a bit confused but had developed a very strong tremor.
3 months later she’d forgotten how to unlock her phone, use her iPad ( she was the most tech savvy Nan I knew) drive a car, switch the washing on. My uncle received a message from her one day saying “ help, no food”. Upon investigation we discovered my Grandfather had been hiding how bad her health had become because he didn’t want her to be hospitalised again.

We took her to A&E after weeks of battling with the GP and getting nowhere. After a few weeks in hospital she was formally diagnosed with Lewy body dementia and is now in a specialist care home.

having recently just lost my Mum, I’ve now lost the other mum figure I had ( I lived with grandparents from the age of 16) and it’s even worse because she’s still alive but she’ll never be the Nan I remember.

Feel for you, OP

My GM was in her early 70's - in those days she was diagnosed as 'mildly confused' - she had been widowed when she was 63 - I do wonder if 'social isolation' is a factor. My dear Mum got diagnosed at 80 - again after a period of 5 years living alone after my Dad died.

Very unpredictable. My friend has it, and doesn’t recognise her DD, my DFr is in her early 60s. My DM is starting to show signs and is in her 80s!

The early stages of dementia are often concealed or obscured by a husband or wife picking up the slack.

They are also often masked by the individuals themselves. I was actually in awe of how my relative could lie through her teeth to doctors etc. All justified with a smile and "I didn't want to make a fuss", "they don't need to know that" and "I'm not going in a home."

I became quite adept at sitting in places where my relative couldn't see my face, and shaking my head with a wry grin or opening my eyes wide in amazement when she told porky pies to health and care professionals. They knew exactly what I was (not) saying, but until the relative lost capacity could do little about it. Then, of course, they'd speak to me privately afterwards, that discussion would go in the notes, and all gleefully sent back in a letter to my relative who would then go berserk...

Yes, widowhood. Because of the grief and emotional impact, and also because often the loss of the other partner lets family members see how much shoring-up they did. Suddenly you realise that the surviving spouse is struggling badly with day-to-day responsibilities. The early stages of dementia are often concealed or obscured by a husband or wife picking up the slack.

Mil was 90.

The elderly person I cared for (distant relative, not a parent) starting displaying paranoia traits when she was widowed suddenly and she could focus all her concerns on her late husband's family. She was convinced that her BiL could break into her flat and read her bank statements without leaving any evidence because he was a joiner and could "cover up" damage to the front door etc. She was 76/77 when I first noticed it.

Within four or five years she had started having auditory hallucinations. She could 'hear' her late husbands relatives discussing stealing her money. This led on to anxiety and panic attacks which, combined with asthma and COPD was not good for her physical health. She refused to let her GP talk to me. She was prescribed sertraline but refused to take it.

By the time she was 85 she was regularly losing (hiding) her purse in her flat and phoning the police on 999 when she couldn't find it. That triggered social services involvement, but still no referral to mental health services.

Then came covid and lockdowns when she had just turned 90. She didn't leave her flat for six months and whilst that wasn't good generally, her being convinced that people were entering the flat when she wasn't in went away for a while.

She was 93 and living in something of an affable haze when there was another crisis of some sort (there always was every time I left the country) and she finally agreed to be referred to the Memory Clinic. Her cognitive tests were very poor and the nurse running the clinic thought it was classic dementia with Lewy bodies. Nurse was overruled by the consultant who, without seeing her himself, diagnosed late onset psychosis and prescribed medication which she also refused to take. Her physical strength deteriorated rapidly at about this time.

After her 94th birthday, her GP and social worker between them referred her back to Older Adults Mental Health Services seven times. Seven times the referral was declined.

By this time she had loads of A&E frequent flyer miles. Usually because of a fall, occasionally because she was found running around her sheltered accommodation talking about the heads in her underwear or the animals in her flat, the latter always when I was out of the country.

From about her 95th birthday she just didn't function. Carers coming four times a day, barely eating, not having a clue what was going on, didn't know to pick up the phone when it rang, could barely move without falling. At 95 and four months she had a fall and major trauma, and was in hospital for a month, during which time she essentially lost the ability to speak. At Best Interests meetings the NHS just kept referring to 'undiagnosed dementia' (!) and pushed her back home saying it was social care needs. She lasted a few hours at home before falling again. After another two months in hospital she was no longer a person, just a frail collection of failing organs somehow still fighting on. I posted on this forum then about going round in circles trying to find the right setting; in the end she was moved to a nursing home on end of life care and lasted less than a fortnight.

TLDR: just under ten years from first symptoms at 76 until it became a problem. Five years of bumbling along and managing the episodes, three years of noticeable worsening before any attempt to diagnose it. NHS mental health utterly useless. A year of bouncing in and out of A&E. NHS mental health bent over backwards to avoid having anything to do with her. Final six months as a dribbling shell of a body and not much more than that. NHS still in denial about mental health needs. Social worker offered to provide her files if I wanted to sue NHS mental health services.

Or indeed any kind of major medical event. Mil’s dementia started after bowel surgery.

DDad was mid 50s. DH’s grandma was 88. I don’t think it’s very predictable.

A fall and hip fracture is a common trigger, it seems. Especially in women. My DM for one.

My 86 Year old FIL ( and very sharp still) describes this as ‘your RAM is full’

My aunt got it at 57.

My DM was diagnosed at 63.

The relative I had, in retrospect would have been early 70's showing early signs. It didn't really become apparent and be diagnosed until about 3 years later though.

My granny clearly had dementia from about the age of 77,78. It worsened over time, she died at 92 having declined very badly in her last few years. Her sister was as sharp as a tack at the age of 93, I remember having a conversation with her then, but over the next few years she too developed the condition and had to enter a nursing home. She lived until she was 102. So it's very variable, even among siblings. Neither smoked, drank etc, had similar sort of lives.

Ah, I'm afraid that is one of the ones that can have a hereditary component -although it's not a strong genetic link.

Not much to be done if everyone is in denial, but at least you kniw to be on watch. Usually the physical Parkinson's symptoms come before the dementia ones, and they can be easier to point out to people.

Common early signs may be missed because most people only know about the tremor. Look for loss of sense of smell; digestive problems - usually constipation but can be diarrhoea; shuffling; reduced facial expression; low mood; and handwriting changes - getting smaller and wandering off the line.

There's some strong but early stage research indicating a link.with the gut microbiology and vitamin B, so if you can persuade her to take a probiotic and.vitamin supplements it may help a bit (and at least should do no harm).

One thing that can precipitate a sudden decline is sedation or anaesthesia, so if she's in need of an operation at any point it's worth pushing the conversation forward. There are some anaesthetics and sedatives that are much safer than others in Parkinson's, and it's one thing I really wish I'd known earlier with my dad.

@NoBinturongsHereMateThank you, I appreciate you taking the time to reply.

It’s my MIL - her mother died relatively young from Parkinson’s which then developed dementia and the decline was pretty rapid.

Im almost certain she’s heading the same way with her behaviours but immediate family are totally closed off to the idea that it’s a possibility. I don’t know what to do.

There are many types of dementia. Some have a hereditary component, some don't. There are certainly genes for Alzheimer's - which doesn't mean if your parent had it you will definitely also get it, or will do so at the same age, but it increases the risk.