Are these dementia signs?

[Banned4life]

We have noticed changes in DM (70) She has gone from being a fiercely independent women to being anxious and nervous, particularly around my DP (female) who she has always had a great relationship with.

As well as forgetting things (keys/ card constantly), she is complaining of constant insomnia and tiredness. She believes this is due to her diagnosed anaemia.

We’re noticed that whenever she is in a group situation, she will engage in conversation to a point but then always bring it back to familiar stories of when she was a child / teenager. She recites these almost word for word and they are long and don’t really link to the conversation. To anyone who doesn’t know her, I suspect she might come across as quite self absorbed but I wonder if it’s because it’s easier for her to recite these?

She’s also constantly looking through various bags and coats for something but can’t say what. It may be linked to never being able to find her keys but even when she doesn’t need keys, she’s searching for something.

She’s been for an initial memory test and was told they’d compare results in 10 months.

We’re worried and want to help but we feel like we’re in limbo. She was initially happy to go for the memory test but as there was no immediate diagnosis re memory she’s defensive when we mention it and says that her increased confusion is down to the insomnia. Im worried she things my DP is pushing the issue when DP Is as worried as we all are.

Is there anything we can do to help her or is this likely to just be insomnia issues? It feels like something more.

Thank you

It can also be a sign of Vitamin B 12 deficiency, Vitamin D deficiency, low Iron or thyroid issues. There are lots of easily treatable causes that can give dementia symptoms, have they had blood tests?

Has your Mum had her urine checked? UTIs often appear as "silent" in older people and manifest as dementia like symptoms.

These are pretty well exactly the same things we noticed with my mother and her mother before her. Her mother was diagnosed with vascular dementia and my mum has “moderate cognitive decline” and would not now be able to live independently without my daily support. Anxiety and personality changes can be a precursor of cognitive decline and my mum now dwells mainly in her WW2 childhood.
Everyone is different and I’m not diagnosing your mum, just saying that what you describe is very familiar.
Hearing loss/not wearing hearing aids has made things worse for my mother so if you haven’t yet, might be something to check.
People who are starting to decline in this way rarely have insight into the condition and Will fiercely resist evidence to the contrary. Early on I realised that pointing out things she’d forgotten or even using the words “memory” or “forget” upset her or made her very angry. For her happiness, I make any necessary arrangements and sort out the muddles that occur in the most low key way possible, helping her to maintain the illusion that she is on top of things.
If you haven’t, get a Power of Attorney in place as soon as you can. This will avoid a lot of expense and problems.
Your mum may be frightened by the idea that she is starting to lose control of her life. I just try to think how would I like to be spoken to or treated if it was me, (as it probably will be some time not too far off) and I try to be kind, despite the inevitable frustration. I have t really seen any evidence for interventions/drugs that can help.
Out of interest how did your mother score on the test?

I can only say what the first signs were in our relatives.
With normally fairly spruce FiL, it was having failed to shave, and wearing a stained jumper. And e.g. putting tins of soup in the freezer.
Though an earlier sign that we missed (being new to it all then) was him asking - as we were all about to depart for BiL’s wedding, ‘Where are we going again?’

The very first sign in my DM, noticed by Dsis on holiday, that she (an avid reader) was starting more than once to read the same book from the beginning.
The thing that later really made the penny drop for me, was when she phoned her bank about something and could not remember, literally the instant she’d put the phone down, what they’d said.

Having been through it all already with FiL, I don’t mind admitting that my heart sank.🙁

My mum (mid 70s) has recently been diagnosed with Mild Cognitive Impairment, which is often a precursor to dementia. She actually did really very badly in her memory tests (worse than expected), but they still think MCI only at this stage. For the last three or four years, she's been suffering from gradually worsening insomnia and anxiety (particularly social anxiety, to the extent that she hardly goes out socially any more), and I definitely think it's all linked. There's quite a lot of research online about the links between insomnia, anxiety and dementia, but no clear conclusion on how they're actually causally linked.

Mum's other main issues are word-finding (not just names etc but the words for every day objects), forgetting how to do familiar tasks (eg cooking a well known recipe), and losing perspective in subtle ways, which can make her quite obsessive and sometimes short-tempered. She's always been a bit repetitive, but this has really increased, to the extent that we just take it for granted now that we'll have largely the same conversation using the same words, each time we phone. I think my dad masks a lot of her difficulties, and I think she'd really struggle to live alone now. It feels like we're almost in a waiting room at the moment, which is horrible - she's not in too bad a state now (not bad enough to need care, for example), but equally she's not great, and she's pretty unhappy, and it feels like we're almost all just waiting for things to get worse, which they almost inevitably will.

Sorry, that's not a very positive post...

Has she had bloods done to rule out infection or deficiencies? Would the GP prescribe an anti-anxiety medication?

Unfortunately that sounds like my mom, she coped while mu dad was alive but once on her own she struggled even with carers and is not in a care home.

My mom was first given the test due to memory problems and confusion during covid in late 2020, via videocall. I can't remember whether we were told the score at that point but they said it was mild cognitive impairment.

Earlier this year she had the test again as she has declined massively, she scored 30 odd and was diagnosed with vascular dementia. The nurse checked her notes and said she had only scored 70 something last time, so that was really low to be classed as MCI apparently!

Thanks @Loub55 that's interesting. Mum only scored something like 14 on her MMSE, which is well into the range for dementia, but I think they must have put that together with other findings to conclude MCI. I'm sorry your mum declined so much once your dad wasn't around - I have real fears of the same happening, though dad seems in good shape right now.