Does anyone else dread old age based on their own parents situation (dementia)??

[WearsblackLoveschocolateAvoidspeople]

I really do want to live to a ripe old age.

However, I don't want to live like my parents. My poor mum bent over with osteoporosis, with a pacemaker due to heart disease, confused to hell due to her 6 year long journey with Alzheimer's and now with the added addition of a breast cancer diagnosis.

Nor do I want to live like my dad who, at almost 83 is actually in great health but is angry, bitter and depressed because he secretly resents my mum's illnesses and says he may as well have dementia because his life is over and who will put lots of pressure on his two daughters (who each have their own health issues) to come round as much as possible (4-5 times a week in my case) and help because he really doesn't want to spend too much of his ££££'s savings and is also stressed at the thought of all the money he's worked hard for (worked until he was in his late 70's) and inherited has to be all spent on extortionate care home costs.

No, I want to live like my 92 year old neighbour (who looks about 70), who still drives, almost jogs to the local shop every morning to get his paper, who has a brain as sharp as a 20 something and seems to be loving every day on this planet.

I know everything in life is just a great big stroke of luck but I watching my own parents suffer has made me so fearful of old age but especially dementia, it takes so much away from everyone involved, it truly is the thief of joy.

I agree.

my mum was really healthy, very slim, never bought ready made food and ate an extremely nutritious, homemade diet. Not too much red meat, dairy etc. didn't drink or smoke, walked lots, kept active, volunteered, everything.

It didn't stop her losing at the Old Age Lottery. She had a stroke and did everything but die 4 years ago and has been paralysed and unable to speak after stroke

Oh gosh I hate the idea of getting old....but then my mum died at 64 before I really thought of her as "old" ...and I don't want to miss my kids growing up/possibly getting married/having kids etc.
My dad was pretty healthy until late 70s, and then had a condition (not dementia) that affected him cognitively for the next 4 or 5 years. Then suddenly he became ill and spent a lot of time very sleepy, forgetting to eat or drink. I was convinced when either me or a sibling would go in every day and make sure he was eating, we would have found him dead. He was given steroids and medication that improved his condition slightly, then in the space of a week he lost all mobility and speech. And died about 6-8 weeks later. We still don't know whether the treatment was beneficial for him, his quality of life was extremely poor.

Currently on holiday with FIL in his 80s who is absolutely deaf as a post - even with hearing aid in, and can barely shuffle along for a 5 minute walk. He has always been very sporty and active until around 80, but declined pretty sharply after covid/MIL death. It's difficult to assess his cognitive ability as its almost impossible to have more than a few words conversation with him! We are constantly worried he's going to trip or fall.

I agree that health is a lottery to a large extent. I do take inspiration from people who have a very active fulfilling life post sixty though. Another woman I know lives on cake! She’s 64 but slim and very very fit. Never ill but takes loads of exercise .

To a certain extent it is a lottery you can't do much about but you can reduce the risk. My relatives, with a couple of exceptions, seem to die in their 50s of cancer or a heart problem, or else keep going relatively healthily into their 90s.

This is interesting about reducing the risk of developing dementia though.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c84jdxd4x1ro

The 90+ neighbour mentioned by a PP who was still getting his daily paper though - I bet that was a big factor in his continued health. That daily exercise and interaction at the shop doesn't sound like much but adds up over the years. It's where I think one of my relatives went wrong in being car dependent in their 40s and 50s and not bothering to exercise.

Do people get these visitors though? I've got one relative who did move into a house that deliberately still had enough room to accommodate all children and grandchildren. Thinking big Christmases, Sunday lunch, long weekends etc!

That happened once. Then more grandchildren arrived, children decided they wanted to do Christmas in their own homes or had to work etc. Over a decade later there's still only been one occasion when all the space was used.

Yes I’m scared stiff of dementia.
My mum lived the healthiest life of anyone I know; never smoked or drank, 9 - 10 helpings of fruit and veg a day (many organic); exercise, fresh air etc etc.
Still didn’t prevent her getting dementia.

Some people are so cocksure they are less likely to get it because they live a healthy lifestyle but do they think all dementia sufferers have lead an unhealthy lifestyle?

My mum and several others I know, never smoked, drank alcohol, kept slim
and exercised etc but still succumbed to this wicked disease.

Of course not, because there's a limit to what anyone can do to reduce the risk. Same with the risk of cancer. But the risk of getting cancer is 50% (in my lifetime) whereas dementia is 1 in 3 people over 90, and less than that for younger age groups.

The Alzheimer's Society has information about managing the risk of dementia:

www.alzheimers.org.uk/about-dementia/managing-the-risk-of-dementia/

I'm extremely worried about old age. I am an only child, no children, no extended family. I will be completely on my own and the thought is terrifying. What makes it even worse is that I know I will have to support my parents through their own old age and watch on in horror knowing there is nobody to do anything like that for me.

I wish that were the case but all mine are in rental with no prospect of buying and no space to entertain or have anymone overnight. I can’t say we did either when our kids were young.

I'm sorry to hear about your mum, that must feel so cruel and unfair.
The painful truth is that nothing will prevent us from getting dementia (or any other illness). All we can do is try and reduce the chances, nothing in life is guaranteed.

People who live a healthy lifestyle ARE less likely to get dementia.
I think the real problem is that many people don't properly understand probability!

Oh interesting @GorgeousTulips. In the example I mentioned it's not that the children had space to entertain in a big way or have guests overnight, it's just that they didn't want to travel back to the grandparents' house (or couldn't as working Christmas) so the big house stood mostly empty of visitors and the grandparents ended up in the Travelodge!

So they'd have been far better off in a retirement flat than in a large house in the middle of nowhere.

That’s a definite no no from us. No matter how tempting when we retire we wont be upping and getting a large house in the country or in Spain or something We’re staying put in the big busy city we live in now, near commodities.

Yes it’s a difficult one. Really hard to know what to do.

My DM had Alzheimer’s for 15 years and went on to 97. FiL had vascular dementia, but not for so long. Of course I absolutely dread either. I would honestly sooner die next week - I’m 75 and still healthy and fully mobile. Dementia is a nightmare for those who have to live with or otherwise witness it.

What Dh and I have done, though, is to state in our health and welfare Ps of A, in which circs (not just dementia) we emphatically do NOT want any life saving or life prolonging treatment.

Yes, my FiL never smoked, hardly drank, was never remotely overweight, still cycling and playing tennis in late 70s - still got vascular dementia.
It makes me really cross when people try to imply that dementia is avoidable if only you do all the right things. Plenty of people who’ve always done the right things still get it. IMO a lot of it is down to luck and genes,

Do you not have any say as to medical treatment? When my DM reached that sort of state I was quite clear with care home staff - unless hospital/treatment were essential - eg a 2nd broken hip - there was to be no ‘striving to keep alive’.
I honestly think it’s verging on cruelty to keep people in that sort of state alive, when Nature is trying to let them go. And for my own DM anyway, I know her former self would never have wanted any ‘striving’ - she’d have said FGS, please just let me go.

This is fresh in my mind having just had a brisk back and forth with Mum's new GP about a Respect form (she's moved from an area where they don't use them). Yes you can say that it is not in her best interests to have antibiotics and hospital admission. You may lose some arguments but you can get the circumstances in which they will do these things down to the most extreme cases. And you can do this without an LPA if they are convinced that you understand your relative's best interests.

We are quite clearly in the notes as a difficult bunch of troublemakers, but I couldn't care less any more.

Like other PP said I’m using the way my parents have behaved in their 80s as a blueprint of how I don’t want to be. I want to downsize in plenty of time and get all the help in I need/can afford so my children don’t have to spend their free time being pulled away from their lives and families to do jobs. Hopefully we can then spend quality time left together. I have an aunt of 80 with advanced dementia in a home and my mother commented how awful it was she was in a home when she’s got 5 kids! Bizarre thinking especially when she put her own mother into care.

Yes. And it’s particularly scary for those without children or close relatives.

I get your point but the absolute last thing I want my children doing is having to look after an elderly me. No way!

Agreed. I am an only child, no children, no nieces or nephews. I have no idea what I am going to do in old age. I worry about it to an obsessive point every single day. It's a fear which I think will never go away (until I die).

My mother died of cancer aged 39, I was 10 at the time. From that moment on I knew I was going to get cancer at a similar age. Sure enough I was diagnosed with cancer last September at the age of 47.

Sending you my very best wishes.