How does alcohol affect the ageing brain?

[Corygal]

Dad's 78 - he's had dementia symptoms since his mid-60s. It ain't Alzheimers because he's been doolally so long if it were Alz. he would be a zombie by now, and he's not had a stroke so it can't be vascular dementia.

He drinks about 15 units a night, every night. The dementia is getting worse - he's just rung to accuse me of stealing money (that, actually, I gave him) on Sunday.

To our family horror, he was cleared of dementia by a hospital screening last year, although he may have been fibbing.

What I really want to know is how much the amount of alcohol he drinks could be responsible for his condition. How do I find out? Does anyone know whether sinking this amount of scotch could produce dementia symptoms for this long and this continuously?

Watching this with interest. My mother has advanced early onset Alzheimers and she puts away at least one bottle of wine a night that we know of (we have caught her swigging from bottles too). I desperately want her to cut down but you just can't talk to her and my dad feels helpless. She is tiny too and gets pissed very quickly. I think it must have a negative impact but really don't know what to do.

I'm no expert but certainly alcoholism can cause a kind of dementia. Confabulation (making stuff up) is a symptom. There a poster called mamadoc who's a psychogeriatirician, hopefully she'll post too.

There is a dementia type illness called Korsakoff's. The Alzheimer's Society has good fact sheets - on all types of dementia and other topics like changes in behaviour. Health professionals might find your observations useful if there are further concerns about your Dad's health & memory.
Can you accompany your Dad to a follow up to help advocate for him? I recognise this might cause you some discomfort if you've never talked about alcohol consumption as a cause for concern, but it might raise some new things to investigate for the people involved in his care. Keep your communication lines open with everyone who could help you. I hope you can find out OP.