AIBU to wonder how you first notice if a person has Alzheimer?

[Eagly456]

I am just wondering, have a relative (86 years old) who tells me the same thing over and over again.
Often little things from her youth/childhood like “when I was a child my mother used to bake cherry cakes as soon as the cherries were ripe“. I mean I don’t mind. I just wonder if it is a bad sign.

Repetitive stories are a sign, when my family member started to develop Alzheimers they would tell the same story on almost a daily bases. It actually only became more noticeable when they started telling 'lies' such as 'my sister Mary came around yesterday and stole from my purse!'. Mary had neither been around and certainly had no history of pilfering. It's when the stories become noticeably 'odd' you should possibly keep an eye on deterioration.

Both my mother and my DM-iL had Alzheimers. Both of them did something really peculiar - a stand out weird thing several years before they started showing signs. In M-i-L's case, at Christmas, she absolutely insisted I don;t peel the onion to make the bread sauce. She put her hand on mine and shrieked: No! Don't peel it! It goes in whole with the skin on. As we don't eat bread sauce and I was only making it for DH who loves it, I assumed this was some secret family recipe, so put the onion into the milk, skin and all. M-i-L walked out of the room, came back in and started laughing and telling everyone what an idiot I was for not peelinvg the onion. It wasn't a practical joke. It was just weird.

My own mum (again at Christmas) 'helped' tidy up. She chucked away some expensive earrings for my cousin, gift wrapped inside a gift bag and told me she'd got rid of the rubbish inside the bag (very obviously a wrapped jewellery box tied in ribbon) but kept the bag in case I needed it again. I had to go through all the rubbish to find the jewellery and when I tried to ask her about it she just looked sly and giggled. Very weird.

The are not really odd.
What’s odd however is that some of them seem so trivial... you know, like little unimportant things remembered after years and years... like “there used to be shop in the X street. Me and my sister bought candy there“ or “once I saw a guy selling balloons. He stood right at the corner of X street and Y street“... and it’s always things that happened in the past.
Okay, she doesn’t go out anymore since she became to frail. I might be a reason but she rarely even talks about things that happened two years ago but about things happening years and years ago.

Older memories can be recalled much more easily than recent ones.

There will also be other signs. Losing directional skills, for example forgetting the way to somewhere very familiar or not recognising an often-used route. Early signs in my relative were uncharacteristic bad temper and nastiness, paranoia and leaving items in the ‘wrong’ place e.g TV remote in handbag, dirty clothes in downstairs coat cupboard etc. The not knowing where she was going or how to get from a-b when she’d lived in the area for decades were the first signs. So too was forgetting arrangements made, even when reminders had been given.

a stand out weird thing several years before they started showing signs.

This. Out-of-character OTT touchiness or getting VERY easily offended, outbursts over nothing, or outlandish acccusations against family members (later proven to be unfounded).

I think it's normal - and not a bad sign - for elderly people to remember the minutiae of the past. Something to do with long-term memory staying intact as short-term memory deteriorates.

I’ve known a couple of elderly relatives with dementia. I wouldn’t worry if it’s just the odd random memory from the past. We got concerned when the same sentences and stories and questions were being repeated during the same conversation.

My experience was that forgetting and repeating stories from the past aren't concerning.
What is concerning is made up memories or thinking you are in the past.

What I noticed first with my Gran and mil was they phoned up saying "where are you, I expected you to arrive today". Little thing perhaps, but in both cases it was something you wouldn't have expected them to get wrong for several reasons.

When my Gran was in a home, there were a number of residents that talked as though they were in the past "My Alfred takes me for a walk along the sea front every day. I'm waiting for him now. We're getting married next year" Alfred being her husband who dies 20 years ago.
Or "I go to the allotment every Saturday with Father. We're growing carrots this year".
And my Gran got very cross about people forgetting the year. It was 1948, and why do people keep saying it's 2002?

I think that the out of character behaviour is definitely a warning sign for dementia in a way that repetitive storytelling may not be.

I know that I've mistakenly told a friend the same anecdote twice (or more), thinking that I'd told someone else. I imagine this increases with age.

With my Mum is was the strange things that she said that made us alert to her dementia. She told my 10 year old daughter that she was getting fat and needed to watch herself around 'the boys' as they'd be after her. This from the kindest Nana who would never normally say anything offensive or hurtful.
After that we picked up on her laughing at inappropriate things, forgetfulness with words and events, talking to the tv, paranoia about people talking about her. It's such a horrible disease.

There are several types of dementia, and they present in different ways. You can't really say "oh they are doing xyz so they must be in the early stages of dementia". Some people will become generally confused about how to do common activities, some will have trouble finding the right word in a sentence, some will repeat stories . None of them is definitely a sign of dementia - some things are just signs of the person getting older. Only a doctor can tell you if the person has / hasn't got dementia , and even then it isn't an exact science.

Actually that relative of mine is acting more happy and cheerful now. That is out of character, for her it’s out of character if that makes sense.

I agree with most other posters.
The repeating the same story (assuming it isn’t within a few minutes) is perfectly normal.
The changes of character or saying strange things are much worse as a warning sign. My Nan started saying her husband was taking money from her.

No, it’s not within minutes... but to give an example: I phone that relative and she tells me the story of the cherry pie. Two days later I phone her again and she tells it again... and then maybe the week or two weeks that.

My mum, always very articulate and did the Guardisn crossword every day, couldn't do it without help, no longer got wordplay jokes, and struggled to find the right word in conversation.
We talked about her problems and she went to the doctor. Four times specifically for that issue over 3 years as well as mentioning it st other appointments. All just getting older, she was told. Normal decline.
Eventually she hot s referral to the memory clinic. All just getting older, they said. Normal decline.
But it clearly wasn't normal to her, or to everyone who knew her. Finally diagnosed 5 years after the initial doctor's visit.

Same stories being repeated.

Losing things, putting them in odd places, can't find them, accusing someone of stealing. Very often money related.

Really odd stories "DS had girlfriend round here, they stayed up all night made loads of noise" DS moved out 30 years ago, it just doesn't make sense.

Walking, wandering getting lost, can't find Woolies / other shop that's been gone for years / looking for previous houses.

Personal care, not washing, lippy not applied properly, losing pride in appearance.

If she is very frail and doesn't go out she probably doesn’t have a lot that’s new to think or talk about, but still wants to communicate and share stories.

Like many people have said above, dementia tends to present as something ‘off’ for that person. With FIL it was his driving - he’d been an excellent professional HGV driver all his life, pre sat-nov, but started to forget which exit to take on a roundabout, or drive straight through junctions. Also started getting very angry, which was his way of responding to being baffled about small things.

Becoming incredibly sensitive and touchy and overreacting was a sign. Big outbursts, screaming and shouting which was very out of character. I also noticed they lost social skills and would come across as very rude. For example in a restaurant telling the waiter that the food was disgusting (when it wasn’t).

Oh that's another one suddenly forgetting how to deal with paper work people have been doing for years, really noticable if someone is still working.

Losing directional skills, for example forgetting the way to somewhere very familiar or not recognising an often-used route

That happened to my mother. I first realised when my dad died, and we had to sort out funeral arrangements etc. She didn't know the way to anywhere and I had to buy a satnav to navigate round Milton Keynes.

She couldn't find her way to the nearest Sainsburys, which she'd walked at least once a week for 20+ years and only involved 3 junctions.

She also developed something the doctor referred to as "visual agnosia", which may have had something to do with it. Apparently, although you can see fine, your brain can't make sense of what you see. She used to ring me up to ask me the time, claiming the clock was broken and she couldn't find her watch. I got a new clock for the kitchen, and it became apparent that she couldn't tell the time any more.

I was also told that people with dementia often revert to having anxiety about things that were problems when they were much younger, usually early 20s. When my parents were first married, at 21, they were very hard up for a few years and in her last years she got obsessed with having no money, when she actually had over £20k in the bank.

Numbers and spatial relationships completely foxed her. Watching her trying to change the height of the oven shelf was heartbreaking, she just couldn't get it level. And she couldn't do up buttons properly, it as though she saw everything all skew-whiff.

Often once someone has had the diagnosis you can go back and highlight those out of character bits, however its difficult to tell at the time! If you see someone regularly then the progression is often (not always) a fairly drip, drip so the change isnt as stark. For example that they started having to think which note is which in their purse, they now just tell you to get it yourself etc

For me a key one is word finding difficulties and stories that dont make sense. Theres a clinical term for it but basically where someone tries to blag their way out of a mistake, so if you ask them a question and they begin to not answer the question or tell stories that arent that plausible. My relative would tell odd stories of what happened to their wallet or while they were on a walk, partly to mask that they had no idea what had happened but partly to try and make some sense of it to themselves. In hindsight we can see some of the stories were odd, but plausible however our suspicions grew and grew.

AS well as repeating conversations my Mum started developing paranoia and having violent arguments with family about stupid things. The trouble was she was always like this to some extent so we didn't put two and two together. It got much worse from there but my Dad 'protected' her, and I had to upset the apple cart (and was blamed for it) by phoning the GP. The GP was really helpful.

It does sound quite normal for someone of her age but certainly something to keep an eye on. Are you seeing her in real life? I think you’d get a better idea then. General loss of organisation, fumbling, having strange fixed ideas, word searching and much, much more. Dementia can last for many years and may not become a major issue for quite a long time depending on the amount of support the person has as well as the type of dementia.

I first noticed some odd things in my DF several years before anyone else took any notice. Quite subtle behaviours or comments that I just knew weren’t right.

Old age can be pretty cruel. As you say listening to the same anecdotes is fine and may simply be a nice comforting way of reliving happy times.

My MIL would phone us, or her other children, every 20 mins or so to ask us what time it was. Even after we bought her a talking clock.

Oh yes, my mum also lost the ability to mapread early on.

Elderly relative would keep asking the same question, "you're good at gardening aren't you?" At first it was once every time I visited her, then it became more frequent, to the point she was asking it every few minutes. (She didn't have a garden so it wasn't a hint she wanted help!)

She then started to not understand where she was - for instance thinking she was walking into the bank to pay her bills, remarking on how they had brightened the place up a little bit, before being told by the person behind the counter she was in a betting shop.

The last thing before she had to be moved into a care home was her being convinced the neighbours were loitering outside her window all night and kept calling the police.