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Alzeimers/dementia affected by UTI/Dehydration

1 reply

Christine1998 · 02/05/2025 21:07

I had no idea that this was so common/as dangerous as it is. My elderly mum suffers with vascular dementia and alzeimers and it is quite advanced, she has had it poss 7/8 years,poss longer, however, she does still know us, thankfully.

We noticed an overnight deterioration on weds this week, and panicked and we were concerned she wasn’t safe to be alone, but she is petrified of moving to a home and tbh we think she would deteriorate even more so we do our best to care for her at home. Overnight she suddenly seemed to be losing her sight, and even more confused than usual, and doing really strange things, we also realised she wasn’t weeing, she is incontinent so uses adult nappies, emergency doctor came out, diagnosed water infection and severe de hydration, potentially due to the heat and the confusion making her forget to drink, a prescription for some antibiotics and dehydration sachets and paracetomol and a couple of days later she is almost back to her previous self.

My mum is 83 and also has bowel cancer, I thought i’d be prepared for when the inevitable happens due to her illnesses and age and her lack of quality of life, but this sudden decline completely knocked me for six 😭.

My point to this post is to maybe raise awareness of the symptoms and hopefully help a family out if they are unaware as we were.

OP posts:
Firefly1987 · 03/05/2025 21:35

How scary for you! Sounds like you did exactly the right thing getting her help so quickly. What a relief she is now back to normal. This happened to my nan (also had vascular dementia) unfortunately she was in a far worse way and was end of life by that point so was not going to improve and was just receiving palliative care-also was much older than your mum. It's good you're warning others to look out for the signs so they can get help quickly.

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