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.

It's so strange - when my mum started showing signs, I was in denial. We all were. I remember telling my friend about some of the things she was saying and doing and she said it sounded like her MIL, who had Alzheimer's. I kept telling myself it was grief, stress, anxiety following the death of my dad. And that was true, but also she had lost this person who anchored her to the real world and who had unknowingly helped to mask any problems.

The same friend who suggested dementia with regard to my mum, is now now seeing very significant issues in her own mum and is in denial. I totally understand that feeling. It can be so hard to accept what is staring you in the face.

I think, OP, that if your relative is just repeating the same stories again and again, it might not mean anything. But if she is repeating the same story or making the same remark within minutes, maybe even less, without realising, then that could be a symptom. If it is dementia, there are always lots of other signs if you look for them.

@Wavingnotdrown1ng

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.

This describes what happened to my Mum to every last detail. Very accurate.

@CMOTDibbler

My mum had always been a bit of a one for needing to get to the right word for things - like asking for 'one of those things you write with', but she lost all her nouns very early on in dementia. But the defining moment for me in knowing something was really wrong with her was when she shouted at ds (then about 14 months old) for chewing the zip on his cardigan. She was the most gentle, patient soul, and in all her teaching career a colleague said that she'd only ever got to mildly annoyed with someone. So shouting at a toddler was massively out of character for her.

Dementia is such a cruel disease.

When my Mum was first diagnosed she came to stay with us at Christmas. She became convinced my youngest DS (aged 7 at the time) had stolen the buttons on her cardigan even though she spent most of the time twiddling with them, doing them up and undoing them. She became really hostile and sweary towards him, f'ing and blinding. It was so upsetting as she was so kind and gentle and adored all her grandchildren. In the end we had to keep them apart, in separate rooms at all times during the visit.

That memory still upsets me now because dementia destroyed who she was.

@TheOriginalMrsMoss dementia took everything that was mum too. She had been desperate to be a grandmother, and she had such a very short time until we had to massively manage her interactions with ds as she would get so aggressive - and she never came back to a nice personality either. She died in April, and slowly I'm starting to be able to concentrate my mind on who she was, rather than what dementia made her

@CMOTDibbler

"She died in April, and slowly I'm starting to be able to concentrate my mind on who she was, rather than what dementia made her".

Firstly my sympathy to you CMOT.

My Mum died some 23 years ago, also dementia. After a couple of years I never remembered her with dementia, always as she was. I still think of her every day. I have to make a conscious effort to remember her with dementia.

@CMOTDibbler

I know exactly what you mean. I lost my Mum in May so I understand exactly what you mean. My Mum's dementia personality was the polar opposite of who she really was. She became angry, she swore all the time (she never swore at all) and at times was violent, aggressive and very difficult. It was bewildering for everyone who loved her and in the end I stopped taking my children with me on visits because it was too upsetting. It's like a death of a thousand cuts where you lose tiny fragments of that person over time. It's devastating.

@magimedi

That's what I'm trying to move towards now. I reminisce with my children about the lovely times we shared before she was ill and what a loving Grandmother she was because she adored them. I've just started going through family photo's which is also a nice way to look back at happy memories. It's hard though and I feel that the years that she was ill were very, very difficult for my family, especially my children.

It was sad because my Mum knew she was losing her memory and her abilities, and it upset her.

She would phone, but then half-way through the call she would forget who she was on the phone to... But she was aware of that and had 'coping' strategies. She'd ask a bland question like "what are the children up to"... If I answered with a non-specific answer like "oh lot of summer camps and a bit of tennis" she would still be stuck. But we all (all family members) recognised that kind of question as a call for help, to bring her back into recognition, so we'd be specific - [name] is doing this, [name] is going to ballet on Tuesday, I am finishing work at [the Bank] early to pick her up... etc.

@CaptainMyCaptain, not horrid at all.
My DM had dementia from her early 80s until she died at 97. She was in a most pitiful state for her last few years - doubly incontinent, not knowing any of her own family, unable to hold any sort of conversation, no clue about anything - every last shred of dignity stripped away.

I’d have considered it a great mercy if she’d died in her sleep long before. And TBH, having seen so much of dementia in both her and my FiL, not to mention seeing so many other sufferers in the (very good) care homes where they spent their final years, I think it’d be a mercy for the vast majority of dementia sufferers.

I recognise so much of my beloved Nan in many of the descriptions in this thread. We are right at the start of the whole process with her, getting doctor appointments to get her official diagnosis, and wondering what’s going to happen. It’s all very stressful and scary, plus Nan refuses to admit anything is wrong. She has got so much worse during lockdown. Her short-term memory is awful, and so is her handwriting. She bumps into doors. It takes her ages to leave the house, constantly going up and down stairs for things she’s forgotten. She’s angry and frustrated.

It has been very useful to read posts from posters who have explained why dementia sufferers think there’s nothing wrong, that their brain can’t absorb what you’re telling them. My Mum wants to constantly correct my Nan but I’ve found it keeps her much calmer to just go along with what she’s saying. Because she really believes she is telling the truth.
I know it’s going to get really bad. It’s so shit.

Learning to go along with whatever they’re currently obsessed with can be very hard, especially when it’s something crazy that you know can’t possibly be true.

I had to learn this the hard way with my DM when she became obsessed with the idea that she and her cleaning lady had taken my father’s dead body to a graveyard many miles away and just dumped it. This arose from a dream, muddled up with something she’d seen on TV the night before.

It was no use telling her I’d been there when he died, I’d been there at his funeral - she was utterly convinced and terribly distressed for around 48 hours. Even her C. Lady telling her over the phone that she’d never taken her anywhere in her car was no help.

Knowing what I learned later, I should have said, yes, I knew, but it was all right, he’d been properly buried now (he was actually cremated), so no need to worry.

Later, when I was wiser, and she became convinced for weeks on end that her sister had ‘stolen’ their mother’s house (luckily she never saw my aunt so couldn’t abuse her in person) I knew that even a signed and sealed statement from the Lord Chancellor wouldn’t have convinced her.

So I just kept saying (her short term memory was zero) e.g., ‘Dear me, that’s terrible, I had no idea - I’ll get on to the police/a solicitor first thing tomorrow.’
I repeated this over and over - it always pacified her for the moment.

One of the first signs with my grandma was that she'd go off to do the food shopping (with a list) and come back with the most bizarre items that she and grandpa would never have normally bought or eaten in a million years. Like one time she came back with a box of fruit snack things (the type you'd give to toddlers) and individually wrapped cheese slices that you'd put on burgers. My grandparents probably never ate a burger in their lives. Apparently the fruit snacks were "for the children". Well I was the youngest grandchild and was in my late teens by then.

What people say about memories from long ago being talked about is because they live in a different part of the brain to events that happened recently. In dementia, the pathway between short-term and long-term memory gets damaged and recent events can no longer get transferred from short term to long term.

In the case of my grandma, in her last few years in a care home, my mum and dad visited her twice a week. She almost always called my dad by his older brothers name, and my mum (whom she'd known for over 30 years) was just "that nice lady" or "the other one". I used to visit about once a month. She never knew my name, or how I was related, but she was always thrilled to see me. She knew somewhere inside that I was someone she knew, and that was enough.

Right at the very end of her life, the only person she could talk about was her cousin Christine, who she'd lived with between the ages of about 7 and 11.

God this is heartbreaking. for all of you who have been through this with your loved ones.

Max, this isn’t the half of it. The first signs are a walk in the park compared with what follows.

Yes my Nanas would both say things repeatedly. They'd ask me to pick up milk and then 20 mins later say it again, on my way out 'oh can you get me a pint of milk?'

Or she'd ask me about my mum three times in a meeting.

Before that though it was more general - losing her bank car/the phone. Being surprised when you turn up on a Tuesday because she swore it wasn't Tuesday yet.

Not being able to follow her soaps 😞

Oh yes and the accusing of stealing a LOT

@MaxNormal

God this is heartbreaking. for all of you who have been through this with your loved ones.

This is so true. Lots of people forget / don't realise dementia is a terminal illness. The brain eventually forgets how to make the body function.

For many the body will give up anyway heart attack, stroke, flu, etc but those who eventually die from dementia it is brutal. Forget how to eat, as in forget to to put food in mouth and swallow. I've seen it once and pray I never need to witness that again.