"In my day, forgetfulness and confusion was just old age, now everything is labelled as dementia"

[Frazzledmummy123]

This was the statement made by my mum yesterday. My dad is 87 and despite being relatively spritely for his age, has been forgetting places that have been shut for decades is shut, mixing up memories of me as a child with this grandchildren, etc.

My mum is the queen of denial, she can't face things she doesn't want to, then tries unsuccessfully to deflect. She also has narc traits is very vain. If I try to talk to her, I get sarcastic comments and gaslit.

My dad has horrendous mobility (see my previous threads about this) and refused walking aids. Instead, he is often very unsteady on his feet which makes people offer help out in public. My mum claims "people overreact" 🙄

How the hell do you deal with this level of denial and stubborness?

I think @LolaSmiles has hit the nail on the head. Apart from my grandmother on my dad's side who lived to 94 and died peacefully in her bed my mum had zero experience of anyone over the age of 80. Aside from the experience of a couple of friends I didn't have any understanding of dementia at all which enabled me to live in comfortable denial about my mum until it broke me! Sadly your mum will probably be the same.

‘I’m 89, I’m allowed to forget some things’ was my mum’s stock answer.
She’d then debate Boris Johnson verses Maragret Thatcher.
The cost of living crisis.
All totally relevant I. Her answers.

At bedtime, She’d put a full face of make up on and order a taxi to go shopping.
On waking, she’d say she’d not been in bed long and leave her be.

She would leave the house barefooted to find someone to ask what day it was.
She would be brought back by a neighbour who was at the end of their tether dealing with her antics.

She denied knowing this neighbour and said they were wanting to steal her jewellery.
I wanted to steal her jewellery and sell it for 17 shillings.

She was incontinent at the supermarket. Leaving a faecle trail behind her.

She was cross with me because I was her mother and mothers look after their children.

Sadness doesn’t cover it.

I heard the gp.has to disclose i've spoken to them which puts me off doing it. It'd cause merry hell. So your first step is to maybe check that statement with the GP. My father’s GP didn’t let on that I’d written to him.

I just feel if we knew what the situation actually is, it might help. With respect, that’s your need not theirs. They may be happier not knowing. Dementia is a one-way downhill road.

I'm in my fifties and had a "forgetful" uncle as a child, so it absolutely was a thing in the past. One of my great grandad's sayings was once a man twice a boy, referring to senility. Of course it existed. But most people didn’t live long enough to get it. It wasn’t the major cause of death it is now. And heart disease and cancer were nowhere near as treatable so carried off more people before they could reach dementia. Of my extended family, with Victorian sized families of great aunts and uncles, only one had dementia, and she lived to 96. I’ve already lost 3 friends my age to it.

Some age related memory loss is normal but this is usually more of an issue to the person experiencing it than to those around them. It might be things like forgetting where you've left your keys, or forgetting what day it is but then remembering later. It shouldn't impact your ability to learn new things or to do daily tasks for yourself.

If family are more worried than the person (the person is unaware), it's impacting day to day tasks, they're forgetting recent events / conversations/ getting confused or lost in familiar places - this sort of thing needs checking. Physical health should always be checked out first because there are lots of reversible causes of memory issues (thyroid/ vitamin deficiency/ mood disorders) but if these are clear a dementia screening is useful, it could also be an MCI (mild cognitive impairment) which is like a mild dementia but isn't a progressive condition.

It's absolutely true that lifespans were shorter and the very elderly people of today wouldn't have seen many cases of true dementia.

However they did know it existed - they used to call it "going senile" and that was whether the person had moderate cognitive decline or something more. The different types of dementia weren't widely known.

A lot of elderly people are in absolute denial about what's happening, and that's understandable. Unfortunately it often ends when a bad fall or a serious step change in the person's condition takes matters out of their hands.