Denial

[Mushroo]

I’m pretty sure my Ddad has dementia of some sort. The last few years / months he’s been a bit haphazard and leaving everything to my mum but that was always kind of his personality.

Its now definitely getting worse, he forgot I spoke to him yesterday (as in, I called him at 1pm and by 2pm he’d told my mum that he hadnt spoken to me) and he’ll do things like only order one drink in a cafe when ordering for two, and when texting will send the same message twice within 10 mins (always worded slightly differently so it’s not just hitting send twice, but forgetting he’s sent the first one).

After yesterday I suggested to my mum that he should see a doctor, and my mum said he refuses to go, and she’s taking quite a laidback approach and says it’s up to him.

How can I get them to go? Surely the earlier he speaks to a doctor / gets treatment the better?

Try to get him in to GP on some other pretext, one that doesn't trouble him - blood pressure, cholesterol, tell him it's a routine check-up at his age, whatever - and alert the GP beforehand as to what's going on.

You headed your post Denial, but it sounds as if there will be an aspect of poor judgment and lack of understanding as well. It's called anosognosia, and it's very common.

Sending good wishes, OP, this is not easy.

OP, I've recently gone through this with my partner, now aged 82. Your second sentence really resonates! I agree with ShrubRose.

It's can be a slow process, so the sooner you start, the better. I asked for a phone consult with our GP - who has DP's consent to talk to me - and explained the symptoms. The doc called him in on some pretext and had a long-ish chat which revealed all the "I can't remember" responses, though at least then he generally knew he couldn't remember! He was referred to the Mental Health Unit and it took months to get an appointment - Covid backlog, probably.

This was in late 2022. They did tests (which were inconclusive) and went for "mild cognitive impairment". But once you're in the system, you can ask for a follow-up, which happens much more quickly and is taken more seriously. His second appointment - last week - was 3 hours long (and exhausting) but yielded a diagnosis and meds.

Thank you both so much, I’ll work with my mum to try and get something with the GP. I didn’t realise you could give them a ‘heads up’ so that sounds like a really good place to start.

@Gonners thats helpful to know about how it works and what we can be pushing for.

He’s not even particularly old (under 70) so going to be a long hard road I think.

One very helpful thing when our DM started with memory loss but her thinking was still clear enough was that she wrote a letter to the GP allowing my sibling and I to speak to them or for the GP to speak to us and pick up prescriptions / make appointments on their behalf .It’s been a Godsend Maybe you and your mum could do that with your DH ( fairly quickly if u think he might have dementia. )Our DM set up power of attorney years before she was diagnosed. your parents should do one of those too I think, if it’s not already done. It will be needed down the line and the person has to have capacity to do it.
Sadly you’re right it’s not an easy road to tread Îm afraid If it’s dementia. Best wishes to you.

Just wanted to come back and say they’ve made a doctors appointment! Thank you so much for the advice

Let us know how they get on.

Have you found the Elderly Parents section yet? It's usually a bit busier than in here

Good luck, OP. A couple of things are worth mentioning if it gets as far as a referral to what they call here the "Memory Clinic".

Before the first appointment, they asked for a written life story - details of family, education, working life, etc. I hadn't really twigged the importance of this. It's to give them some idea of what to "expect" of a patient in the mental tests they give and what we produced was undetailed. I re-did it for the second appointment, with much more info on his level of education, career etc, and at the end of the appointment the doc said this had changed matters, as she would expect him to have performed a great deal better in the tests (which were identical second time around). So try to do a good job of that.

So if, for example, someone has taught maths can't do "What is 9-3+5?" in their head, or a zoologist (when shown a bunch of animal pictures and asked to point to the marsupial) doesn't pick the kangaroo, then those would be red flags. As would not being able to name your only grandchild!

Also, they may give your mum a list of questions with boxes to tick for always/sometimes/never or very/slightly/not at all. The temptation is to "be kind", but it's important to be truthful. He won't see her answers.