do yoy have a close relative who suffers dementia/alzheimers?

[bejeezus]

And would you mind sharing your experience of onset with me?

I started a thread yesterday moaning about my mum who appears to have undergone a personality change in the last 2 years or so. She has become disinterested in and disengaged from me, sometimes angry. She is VERY negative and critical about EVERYTHING my dad says or does. And is vicious towards my dd1

She does fairly often misremember conversations/arrangements and occasionally fabricated them. But nothing like, forgetting who people are, or things that have happened in the past. She does crosswords and can follow recipes for example

Some posters on the other thread say, despite that, it is like their experience of relatives with dementia

OP, you know I gave my experience on the other thread but I just wanted to say on here that my grandmother also still does crosswords. You often find that clever people can hide the memory problems extremely well. It is very common for them to remember the more distant past, it is more short-term memory that is the problem.

yep that sounds like my mum about 4/5 years ago, became disengaged/disinterested to the point she forgot my sister was pregnant...and if anyone asked how sis and baby where doing would say "oh she's got months left yet she's only 2 months". she said this up until the day before baby was born and was then surprised when I phoned to say I was taking her to see the baby and sister in the hospital. She started showing a distinct lack on interest in herself and her general hygiene. She would loose her temper over the slightest thing, so from having been happy that when I popped round I would mow the lawn sort out some of the plants etc she would tell me to leave it and that she was going to do it and get very aggressive about my telling her what to do. She also fell out with a number of her good friends aroudn this time and unfortuantely as no one knew she was ill they all let it fester. By the time mum was diagnosed 3 years ago with early stages of alzheimers it was too late to make up, which is sad.

While she is now much worse she can still do the crossword and win any general knowledge quiz going.I sat with her while who want's to be a millionaire was on one night - we'd have won.

if you think this is what is wrong with your mum I would start making a record or any odd things she is doing as when you approach Dr's you need to be able to give examples of forgetfulness and dates when you first noticed it. My mum was able to convince anyone in a one to one conversation that she was absolutely fine because as Cleo said clever people can cover so well.

Try some of the basic tests they do, ask her the day, month, year, season, who is prime minister and ask her to remember a sentence like up the apples and pears, put the sentence in amongst the questions make sure she repeats it so she knows what you have said. then at the end of the questions ask her to repeat the sentence if any sort of dementia she will more than likely be unable to remember it.

But mostly I would get your dad to have words with the GP asap. if it's caught early there is medication that can halt the progression.

Def sounds like how my mum started - it was the personality change that was first, then everything else started to go. Fortunatly, she seems to have stopped the aggressive bit after 5 years of it which makes life much more pleasant, even though you struggle for a conversation about now.

Around late 50s/early 60s my grandmother, mum and now mil went through a personality change. It wasn't Alzheimer's with any of them.

With my mil it has been very noticeable, she has always been a very family orientated person to the point of being over bearing, wanting to see family all the time but now with the exception of some family she isn't really that interested, doesn't want family get-to-gethers and wasn't interested in Christmas.

I spoke to my mum about it as she went through a similar thing 10 - 15 years ago. My mum said that around the time she turned 60 she just felt that she could only bear family in small doses and is less likely to put up with rubbish from people anymore. I think the unconditional love thing goes as my mum is constantly moaning about one of my siblings although her gripes are partly justified it makes me a little sad because I can see that my mum is looking for problems sometimes.

My nan also used to moan about her children constantly as she got older.

I've been suprised that this is peoples experience of alzheimers. It's not an aspect if it that you hear so much about IME

Hazie that's really sad. I'm not sure I wouldn't prefer it to be Alzheimers

Could it be depression rather than dementia? My mum's friend had a personality change and was very withdrawn and negative.

Just wanted to add my experiences.

6 or so years ago just after my DM retired she began to undergo a personality change like the one you describe OP. For a long time she had memory problems and we noticed she was repeating herself a lot. i was convinced it was depression as she had suffered a lot with this for a long time. But it gradually got worse and so she had all sorts of blood tests but they all came back negative.
finally she had an MRI scan which proved negative but the problem became worse and she just seemed to stop enjoying life, stopped going out and she was angry, aggressive and completely unreasonable most of the time.

When she finally saw a psychiatrist who ordered another MRI scan it showed she had Altzheimers which was visible on the first scan but it had been missed.

The week before Christmas she had to be taken into care as she is now in the advanced stages and my DF is unable to cope any more. I would say if you are worried try and get your DM to see her GP. if she has a history of depression it's even more vital you do this as there is a proven link between depression and Altzheimers.

Sorry I can't be more positive but there is a lot that can be done if it is caught early enough. That said it may be nothing more than your DM trying to cope with the stage of life she's at. I hope so OP.

Has she had any history of strokes or heart disease? There are different types of dementia, but the most common alongside Alzheimers is Vascular Dementia - very similar symptoms, sometimes a different prognosis and some poor souls are diagnosed with both these conditions.

The key is to get an early diagnosis, but sometimes you have to battle to get the right tests and the right medication. The latter, if administered early enough, can arrest the condition to an extent, if not cure it - but it is very expensive and some Health authorities build in agonising delays before they will prescribe. For some people it is too late for the tablets. Close relatives are often in denial about what they've noticed and you might find your Dad is like that, but persevere and ask others who see her often enough to make a judgement.

My mum went through the menopause in her fifties, and she was absolutely irrational, moody to the point she was in tears herself with it because she just couldnt cope, and it was me and my Dad who took the brunt of it, along with it.

does sound a bit like my dad...4 years ago. I would encourage your dad to try and get her to see their GP in the first instance, and to start noting down anything that you notice. My dad can still be quite aggressive and argumentative occasionally, but not like he was in the early days.

He's not quite as adept at covering up any more, I think most people within a few minutes of meeting him now realise that there's a problem, whereas he was initially able to backtrack and pretend he remembered things or people.
He talks about his childhood and his days in the Navy all the time now, my sister says he's like a radio set to "transmit". You can't have a proper conversation with him because it doesn't matter what you're talking about, or what you say...he just wants to tell you his story, again. and he'll talk over you and repeat it. All the time.

I have recently started suffering from early onset dementia and it is quite concerning. Most of the time I'm fine, but sometimes I can completely forget what I was did earlier in the day or even a few minutes ago.

I have recently started suffering from early onset dementia and it is quite concerning. Most of the time I'm fine, but sometimes I can completely forget what I was did earlier in the day or even a few minutes ago.

I really hope the double posting was an accident because you're on your phone.

I have spent a lot of time trying to convince my siblings that my mother is depressed but after reading the accounts on this thread am beginning to wonder if the disengagement and vitriol are actually early signs of dementia.

My gut feeling was that she is not right and I will start reading up on this. I live furthest away so don't see her as often, which may be why the changes are more noticeable to me.

:(

Thanks everyone for your input. It looks like dementia is a very real possibility then. I think I will speak to her GP next week

My grandmother suffers from vascular dementia. With her it started as extreme anxiety, particularly of being on her own or about routines (worrying about when her dinner would be for example) I think the forgetting who people are comes later - in her case about 4 - 5 years later. She was originally misdiagnosed as suffering from depression (my grandad had recently died) so it was hard to get the correct care in place.