What does changes in the brain mean?

[greyep]

My mom is in hospital. Slurred speech for months, recent seizures. A few days ago her level of consciousness dropped dangerously low and DNR was discussed which came as a shock.

She has improved but is still not great. She's had 2 CT scans and an EEG but nothing has been found and yesterday an MRI. I called for the results and the Dr who isn't moms Dr when pushed said that changes in the front part of the brain have been found. And another MRI with contrast was being arranged. What do they mean by changes in the brain?

Communication with the hospital has been painfully lacking but I understand how busy they must be.

Could it be dementia? This sounds a bit like my MIL. Nothing concrete to diagnose her with but they noted changes in her brain - basically they said her brain was dying off slowly, hence the deterioration in her day to day health.

A MRI with contrast will show if the changes in the brain are tumour-related (tumours show white on the contrast scan) or something else (e.g. dementia if your Mum is older, strokes, other things )

Tinking of you both

It's very hard to say. On the back of an MRI they could be looking at reduction in the amount of grey or white matter in the brain, tumors, bleeds (aka stroke) or other vascular (vein) malformations or microbleeds, or tangles, plaques or lewy bodies (common in forms of dementia). Either way, they are likely saying some deterioration is happening in her brain which may explain some of these symptoms

Good post by Daydream Believers. I suppose broadly you could think of 'changes' in this situation as "parts are not functioning" & in a way that can't be repaired.

Sorry that's so blunt.