Is this the start of dementia?

[KittensSchmittens]

We're starting to worry about my mother (74) and wondering whether we should contact the GP.

Things that are new/out of character:

She seems to have developed an absolutely rigid daily routine which she never deviates from. It’s very specific and involves doing, and eating the exact same things every day in the same order.

She says the same stock phrases at the same points in the day e.g. when she sees the dog in the morning it's 'good morning, are you being a good dog, be patient, I'll take you for a walk later'. Same phrase, same time every day.

She doesn’t engage in much back and forth conversation, it’s mostly broadcasting information relating to her routine, the dog or the weather. She will tell the same anecdotes over and over. The same reminiscence will be triggered by a specific topic e.g. if we mention the pub it will trigger ‘the pub anecdote’. She has a number of these.

She forgets the words for things (she just now called dumbbells ‘lifting tools’, which was a bit alarming). We've also had 'the stuff for washing your hands' (soap, mum). Yesterday my son had a friend over and she asked what the friend’s name was 3 times in 10 mins.

She wears the same 2 or 3 outfits, eats the same breakfast, rotation of 3 lunches and 5 dinners every day. She doesn't cook at all, only microwave or oven meals.

Every evening she repeatedly shouts the same same line of a made up song over and over every 30 secs for up to an hour while she's making the dogs dinner and making her own dinner.

She's developed a nervous laugh at the start and end of every sentence. Laughing is the main form of response if she's not sure how to react e.g. the kids show her something random instead of going 'oh that's nice billy' or whatever she'll just laugh. It's just constant giggling.

We have to talk in very short, clear sentences to make ourselves understood, otherwise she'll interrupt and redirect the conversation back to her daily routine/dog info/the weather.

She only watches the news, Pointless and music on the tv, nothing with a storyline to follow. She watches these 3 programmes everyday in the same order.

Her broadcasting of information is very good, so talking to her she seems quite normal and she can do small talk as long as she's dominating the conversation, but I'm wondering if this is a cover for the fact she isn't following what we're saying.

Is this likely to be the start of dementia, just mild cognitive impairment or just how people get when they age? Do we call the GP and see if they can get her in for a check up.

for my dad, he passed the first time and failed the next time, hazard perception deteriorated

Good luck with getting anywhere with GP, we've raised concerns about my mum roughly 12 times and because she's tells all professionals to f off and they aren't taking her driving licence away they see no reason to assess.

Repeating things after only a few minutes and asking same things again every few minutes are a sign. Don't know about the rigid routines. Maybe she has the routines to stop her forgetting to do things like have lunch, i agree visit to GP.

OP, good that you have had so much practical advice.
Whatever the medics decide, your lovely DM is unlikely to reverse any of this new behaviour and both she and you will have a changing relationship, as she ages more and more.
We went through this stage when my DM hit 70 and my DM continued for another 20 years, the last eight in various hospitals and care homes.
With the benefit of hindsight take lots of photos of your DM with her grandchildren when she still makes them laugh and they have a strong connection. My DC can't really remember their DGrandma when she was 'in the moment' and they just know the difficult stuff. Maybe add a few 'bucket list' days out for them all the family this summer.
Also, comb this Elderly Parents board for things you can do to future proof of start a thread about what people wished they'd done in a similar position.

Not just photos of course, film a few things on the smart phone.

Some of it sounds like old age especially the inward focus, and the rigid routine stuff maybe anxiety but the repeatedly asking the same question could be some sort of cognitive impairment.

The being able to fool officialdom/non family for a short time is very familiar.

You could write to or call the GP and raise concerns but they won't be allowed to discuss with you unless she has given permission. If there are safeguarding concerns you can ask them to involve social services but it sounds like there aren't.

A diagnosis would help you know what to expect, and when. But it doesn't really
open any magic doors. My mum was finally diagnosed last year but I'm sure she
had dementia for at least 5 years before that. Be aware that someone can have a dementia diagnosis and still be deemed to have capacity (meaning they can refuse any care). This coupled with the person being able to fool officialdom (social services in our case) can lead to a very rough time for a while.

It could well be. Our mum did some of those things before her dementia became clear, though not so stereotyped. But is she coping, feeding herself, not miserable? I would worry about interfering with her routine while she is living safely with it. OTOH if she is willing (and you don't say if she is driving, which is one of people's main fears about a dementia diagnoses) you could try and get her to seek a diagnosis and she could then get tablets which would help her cognitive processes somewhat.

And try and get her to set up a power of attorney if you can without upsetting her, it's a much more difficult process later if she loses capacity. You can do the work, or get a lawyer to, it's fiddly and she will have to sign in due course. The Health and Welfare POA is easier to set up yourself as it's just a bit less fiddly.

Hi did you find out what is wrong? My father is presenting similar symptoms

@Mumoftwo367743 I haven't yet, but she continues to deteriorate slowly and in fact I just today spoke to the GP about our concerns and he has agreed to discreetly call her in for a check up.

What prompted me in the end was her leaving the house for half and hour leaving jam boiling on the stove and the fact she's been falling for obvious scams left, right and centre.

So we don't have an answer yet and it's taken me a long time to process it enough to get to the point of calling the GP.

Sorry you are potentially going down this road as well.

I honestly think (in a post I made a while ago on this thread) that lots of this is a result of a much 'smaller world' - not necessarily full on dementia. A very nice registrar at A&E here told me that if they checked every over70 , the vast amount of folks would have some cognitive impairment that tallies with dementia - it's just to what degree! A cheerful thought for me at 61!

Definitely get her hearing checked as soon as you can. Even mild hearing loss has been shown to double the risk of dementia and 1 in 10 cases of dementia can be prevented with the use of a hearing aid.

Please keep us updated. I am worried sick

Update to this: my mother has had her appointment with the GP but I wasn't there and she hasn't mentioned what happened.

Her mental state has definitely deteriorated though and I am now in no doubt that she has dementia. Today she forgot the existence of an old friend. They have been dead some years but they were a friend for 35 years and entirely wiping the existence of the person from memory wouldn't fall within the range of normal forgetfulness at all.

So right now I would say the situation is I know my mother has dementia, I think she might know she has dementia although I'm not sure and I have no idea if the GP thinks she has dementia and no way of finding out. Not really sure what comes next.

Also just to add that her car is now sporting a number in significant dings, which look like she is having some trouble with manoeuvring in car parks. They're obviously low speed scrapes rather than full on crashes, but she's never had this problem before.

So now I'm lying awake at night panicking about her driving. I've asked her to stop driving - no luck, I've told her not to drive long distances - this seems to have been taken on board, I've asked other people not to get in the car with her - successful, and I've called her GP - no idea what they did with this info.
She's not at the stage where I could just take her keys and she'd forget about driving after a while, so I'm not sure what else to do. I guess the next port of call is informing the DVLA, which feels a bit drastic as I don't actually know how bad her driving is as I don't get in the car with her and she doesn't have an official diagnosis of anything.

@Mumoftwo367743 I've posted an update of how things are going with my mum, how are things with you?

You also need to look at the causes of dementia. My mum did seem to develop it quite dramatically and we realised much much later that she had had a series of strokes.

By the way, i grassed up my dad for driving with dementia and the dvla did fuck all.

How do you get someone who seems to be declining go to a Doctor, the person I'm worried about would absolutely not go, I wouldn't even dare suggest it. Or does there come a time when they sort of know and would do if it's suggested?

It does sound like either dementia or alzheimers. You could speak to her GP and ask if she could be called in for a "routine check up" that would include a memory test. My friend's GP did this every couple of months to assess the rate of deterioration . Very important if the patient is still driving :-(

Could she possibly "loose" her car keys or can you puncture a tyre and leave her to sort it in the hope she doesn't.

@2bazookas that's interesting, I did call the GP and report a list of my main concerns. I hadn't thought of doing it regularly.

@Greentree1 I called my mother's GP to report some specific concerns about her memory and behaviour. He was very good and arranged for my mother to be called in for a general check-up.

She was a bit mystified when they called to invite her in, but she went along. I wasn't there though so have no way of knowing how the appointment went.

The local police might be better at stopping an elderly parent with dementia from driving. Though back in the day, for us it was more a question of the parent having cataracts which might easily have been solved with a free operation.

To update, I now know that the GP ordered a blood test and referred my mother for a CT scan at the local hospital. There's no mention of a memory clinic appointment or anything like that. Does that sound right? Presumably this means the memory checks at the GP surgery didn't go well?

In other symptoms, yesterday she seemed to forget the concept of thunder. There was lightning - my mother says 'oh lightning!', 3 seconds later there's a loud crack of thunder and she says 'what was that?! What was that loud noise? Where is it coming from?'. I thought she was pulling my leg, but genuinely she seemed to have no idea. Really bizarre.

I'm very far from being medically trained so do take everything I say with a huge pinch of salt but I do seem to remember DMIL filling a similar path before the referral to the Memory Clinic.

Blood tests to check for other causes of confusion.

Scan to look for physical signs of brain degeneration.

I had the blood test and the scan. Because of the results of the scan, despite getting 100% in the memory test, I was referred to the memory clinic. (Came through memory clinic tests with flying colours, in case you’re wondering).

I think some areas do it the other way round - memory clinic testing first, scan dependent on results of that. Blood test is standard, though.

So your mother would have been referred for scan either because she was noticing symptoms or because of her score on the short memory test at the GP.