FIL has ADHD

[BonnesVacances]

Is it worth getting an ADHD diagnosis for my FIL?

MIL is struggling to cope with him as he's been way worse since the lockdown and his behaviour is just escalating. His hyperactivity is such that he's off out every 10 mins. Visiting people who don't want to be visited. He's ordering random stuff on the internet and the house and garden are getting full of things they don't need, including food, and she's overwhelmed by it. He's painting furniture in the garden that doesn't want painting and he's only doing half of it so it looks awful.

And he won't listen to anything she says. He wants to buy two grass snakes for the garden and just gets really angry with her when she tries to stop him. She terrified he's going to come back from one of his trips out with them.

They are awaiting assessment from the Adult MH team and I'm assuming they will look at ADHD as they'll look at everything, but he was originally referred there because the GP suspected dementia (it's not that). He had delirium at Christmas as he had water retention which has been an ongoing problem for quite a while.

But I was wondering if they'd even medicate him at his age (70s) or just leave it and offer him CBT which wouldn't work.

@TurquoiseLemur totally agree that many would have missed a diagnosis in the past, but think that if someone elderly is suddenly showing unusual and odd behaviour, it's less likely to be a lifelong disorder.

Op hope the mental health team can help you get to the bottom of it.

When you say that he passed the dementia test at the doctor’s, do you mean the GP? Firstly, there isn’t one test at 10 rule out dementia, but also a GP can’t diagnose dementia. It can be a long process and will only be diagnosed by a specialist e.g. psychiatrist/gerontologist.

• ignore ‘at 10’. No idea how that got there.

[quote OverTheRubicon]@TurquoiseLemur totally agree that many would have missed a diagnosis in the past, but think that if someone elderly is suddenly showing unusual and odd behaviour, it's less likely to be a lifelong disorder.

Op hope the mental health team can help you get to the bottom of it.[/quote]
Of course, yes. If FIL has only shown this behaviour recently, that makes it unlikely to be ADHD.

I want to reiterate what another PP said

Please just list the symptoms / behaviours out in a piece of A4 as they happen. The more you look up specific conditions, the more you may give an accidentally biased list of symptoms.

Then let the psychiatrist/ OPMH diagnose, he is awaiting that assessment. I notice COVoid is an OP psychiatrist -she said they are unlikely to be able to diagnose ADHD, that tells you how unusual it would be, she would have to refer into a specialist for that. Also my experience is a 70 yo is unlikely to suddenly present with ADHD that "deteriorated over last few years", far more likely to be another mental health condition affecting his attention span and concentration and the other behaviours. It really is best left to the Mental health professionals rather than Google.

Thanks all. Will take all the comments on board. What I needed to know is whether they would look at ADHD and it seems like they won't.

His behaviour has always been challenging. His mum used to say she'd tried to give him away. It's got worse recently though, just the same traits exaggerated. The dementia test was the bobbins 'who's the PM, can you remember this address' test. He's had brain scans, all sorts. I do think it could be dementia but it's so hard to tell. Luckily it's not my job to!

Re Dr Google, my DD has had chronic debilitating health conditions for nearly 6 years and so I'm well-practised at planting seeds and not going in with a diagnosis in my mind. That said if it wasn't for Dr Google, I can't imagine where my DD would be now with the utter disinterest and ignorance of the medical professionals regarding her conditions. So there's a happy medium.