Alzheimers - early warning signs

[Hopefullyrecovering]

DH is 55. His mother and all his maternal relatives suffered from dementia. These things run in families, I know, and for years I've worried that DH would start suffering from it. I am probably being over-anxious, but I'd like to make sure that he gets help if I do see any early warning signs, because help is available in the earlier stages. So, these are the symptoms. Tell me whether I should get DH to the doctor's (he will be totally resistant) or not.

• Cannot leave the house without forgetting something. Anything. Usually his wallet, sometimes his keys, sometimes his coat. Any trip out involves a u-turn a couple of miles away from home when he works out what it is that he has forgotten.

• Has difficulty coping with multi-tasking. He is an intelligent and organised chap. But give him two or three things to do, and he flounders. He cannot, for example, walk and talk. This sounds ridiculous, but if I ask him a question when he is walking, he stops dead while he tries to process the question and develop an appropriate response.

• Last Sunday (and this is what has prompted this thread) he woke me up at 9am literally shouting. I should explain that I had had a disturbed night and only got to bed at 6am so I was naturally a bit miffed. But he was shouting "Why haven't you sorted DD out?". I was a bit baffled as to why DD needed sorting out and asked him to calm down and asked him why he thought DD needed something. He said "What about school -you've forgotten about school!!" I calmly explained it was Sunday, and there was no need to worry. But it's made me worry. How many of us wake up thinking 'oh, shit' for whatever reason. That's natural. But brooding on it and still not coming up with the answer is worrying, no?

He sounds very like my stressed DH.

D'you think I am worrying unnecessarily? It's just stress and not early-onset Alzheimers? Not that stress is a picnic, of course.

Are the first two new problems?

No, they've been around for a while. As they were with his mother, before she was diagnosed.

From the Alzheimer's UK research website:-

Dementia often develops slowly and is not always obvious in the early stages. Symptoms similar to dementia can be seen in other illnesses. Sometimes it can be difficult to tell apart dementia from the usual mild forgetfulness seen in normal ageing.

You should see your GP if you or your family and friends are worried about any changes in:

Memory
General mental functioning
Ability to carry out daily tasks
Personality
Your GP will be able to either reassure you or, if necessary, refer you to a specialist. Diagnosing dementia early is important to allow you to get the right help and treatments and to plan for the future. Everyone with dementia will experience symptoms in their own way.

Alzheimer?s
Named after Dr Alois Alzheimer, who observed the disease in 1901, Alzheimer?s disease affects about 500,000 people in the UK, and an estimated 35 million worldwide.

Typical symptoms of early Alzheimer?s include:

Regularly forgetting recent events, names and faces.
Regularly misplacing items or putting them in odd places.
Confusion about the time of day.
Disorientation, especially away from your normal surroundings.
Getting lost.
Problems finding the right words.
Reduced judgement, for example, being unaware of danger.
Mood or behaviour problems such as apathy, irritability, or losing confidence.

Hello, OP

I'm sorry to say that but this doesn't look good. As you already know, dementia is categorised by odd behaviour, loss of short term memory and changes in personality.

My Mum has vascular dementia and this is how things started for her.

Make an appointment with your GP - he or she should be best placed to help you. Good luck.

Thank you all. I thought as much. Heigh ho. I did know it was coming.

I think its def time for a trip to the GP - if it is dementia/impaired cognition then there are specialist services for the young (ie under 65) who can really help, and obviously look for a definitive diagnosis. If it is Alzheimers, then the new drugs can really help in the young.

I mentioned it to him. The conversation did not go well. It's ridiculous, I mean why wouldn't you go and get it checked out?

Because he's scared God knows, my parents were terrified and my mum is 72.

10 warning signs. This is from the US Alzheimer's website, and I like it because it gives examples of "normal changes" to contrast with the worrying signs.

How old were his relatives when they developed dementia? Early-onset forms ( before 70) are more strongly heritable, later-onset less so. Do you know what types of dementia they had?

There are lots and lots of possible causes for memory and cognitive problems including simply stress and depression.

It also sounds possible that you may be hypervigilant for any memory problems in your husband and attributing any slips to dementia.

If you live in/near London and want to pm me I can give you the name of a clinic specialising in memory problems in under 65s.

Yes, thank you :) I knew I could be being hyper-vigilant. But it just struck me as being so very odd, forgetting that it wasn't a school day. And I've done that sort of thing before - thinking it was the wrong day - but it normally lasts around 2 seconds before I recollect where I am and what I am doing. Whereas DH just didn't work it out until I told him.

His relatives all followed the same progression - unusual forgetfulness in their 50s, accelerating rapidly in their 60s, to 24 hour care in their 70s.

So for instance, DH commonly forgets DD's name. He calls her either by his niece's name or his sister's or occasionally mine. Again this is not normal.

Woah!!! Just hold on, don't panic - please!

He sounds like he is stressed.

When you say he forgets things, does he suddenly think "d'oh, i forgot the X" or does he know he has forgotten something but doesn't know what?

The walking and talking thing is quite common (i do this ) and he could have been mid dream when he woke.

Does he work? what does he do for a living? Are there problems, is he stressed? Anxiety can produce some pretty weird smptoms.

Did his parents have alzheimers at a young age? otherwise you cannot be sure that the dementia was actually caused by actualy alzheimers. This is a genetic test that can be done for familial early onset alzheimers im sure.

Yes, id be alerted, but i wouldnt be jumping to conclusions just yet.

My Dad had dementia, it was vascular dementia - it came on slowly but it wasn't as simple as just forgetting things. He had done that all his life! Me too, im the most absent minded person i know But he started to not make sense, he would come to my houe and talk about another woman who lived in his house, who didn't like him. I knew there was something wrong, but i stuck my head in the sand, but it was confirmed for me when the poor bastard got lost going from my house to his and came back in tears and asked my DP to take him home - he literally lived no more than 200 yards away :(

For me, its not making sense rather than forgetting things. Also everyone with dementia will differ so go with your gut and get him checked out, but remember, he will be scared and not want to admit it. Try and persuade him that there are very sucessful treatments that can significantly improve his health and stop the desease from progressing for quite some time. That is even IF he has it, which i pray he doesnt.

And regarding help being available in the early stages... while many clinicans think it should be and that early intervention is more effective, unfortunately the powers that be disagree. If he has mild cognitive impairment they are likely to simply watch and wait to see if it gets worse.

One thing you can do is to make sure your husband minimises any vascular damage to the brain by keeping his blood pressure, cholesterol etc within healthy limits, exercising and following a healthy diet.

The other thing you can help him do is to compensate for his cognitive difficulties.

If he is leaving the house without keys etc you might want to invest in a "Doorganiser" (you can google it). This hangs on the door and you keep you wallet, keys, phone etc in it then take the whole thing with you when you go out.

You might also want to buy a whiteboard and set it up in the kitchen or somewhere and use it to write reminders and things to do.

Oh, crossed posts - :( maybe he should get checked out, based on the family history. But you know, i do the name forgetting too, so does my mum - i know i sound like im clutching at straws but i guess you need to ask yourself, would you be alerted to this if it wsn't for the history or would you just be thinking , huh, daft sod?

Good post Lizzabadger. We did this for my dad, made sure there was only one clock (my parents often had several and only one was right!!) Oh, and i think i might get myself a doorganiser!!

Try not to ask him to do more than one thing at a time.

Buy a clock that also has the day and date on it and put it in a prominent position, maybe by the whiteboard to form a "home memory centre".

Given the early-onset in his relatives you are right to be worried. He should really be seen in a specialist clinic.

If I were you I think I'd see if I could get an appointment with his GP alone to discuss my concerns.

Sorry for crossposts LucyEllen'smum! Yes, Doorganisers are great!

There are lots of different types of dementia LucyEllen - for my mum who has frontotemporal dementia it went from her standard adult setting of not getting the word out for the odd thing (sandwich with meat from a tin being a childhood joke), to most conversations having words missing, to now where she doesn't have words for things, people, places and can't substitute. Similarly it affects planning skills, so her cooking went from 'not very good', to unable to follow a new recipe, to cooking one element or burning/leaving raw thing, to now when she just stands there and looks at the ingredients.
But she makes sense (if you can put the missing words in), and her memory isn't very, very bad. Just the way her brain has been affected

Im sorry to hear about your mum CMOT - it is a shit disease, no matter what form it takes. There was a lady at my dads home (he has passed away now) who was convinced she was 14 and would flirt terribly with my DP but in a way that was appropriate to the time (she was quite old!) she was remembering. Then she would talk about having to get home before her nan got crossed. She made the visits bearable as my poor dad was in a bad way :( and this woman was just so funny (i know its not funny at all but you know what i mean)

Dementia will affect the lives of the majority of us in one way or another. It's not fun but there is plenty that can be done to maximize the indiviual's quality of life and reduce cared stress. It's worth taking a look at the NICE dementia guidelines and the Alzheimer's Society website.

A friend of mine's husband had early-onset Alzheimer's. It started with not being able to add up golf scores - his friends approached her. Then confusion about paying for things in shops with the correct money, not being able to work out when a TV programme was on from the Radio Times. Problems with words - asking for that thing you put milk in, instead of jug. She went to the doctor on her own and then a joint visit, discuss a vitamin supplement to help with memory loss. The doctor asked him some questions and she was shocked to discover that he had no idea what season it was. Living with him every day, she had no idea.

I don't know if this rings any bells and really hope that it's just stress or depression, but if it is dementia early treatment can make a lot of difference in slowing down the decline.

I used to work for the Alzheimer's society then went on to delivery training in care homes. My mum died at Christmas after suffering for ten years with vascular dementia.

Generally with early onset dementia, I found that the sufferers had an awarness they were losing abilities; for example within a family I visited, they were unaware of the extent of their dad's decline until they went on holiday for two weeks and asked me to visit. I spoke to him alone and he said he had lost his ability to tell the time and pretended his watch had stopped. He also could no longer work out his money, could not add up his change or offer the right change in shops etc. He had covered this by saying he had forgotten his glasses.

Yes, it is about forgetting things, but it is so much more than that. i realised my mum was having difficulties early on and the rest of the family though I was going mad. Sadly I was right.

She sat the mini mental state examination and was pretty good at this. Lots of suffers tend to think the year is 1970 something - I cannot explain this one! Asked to name the Prime Minister she responded "that cock head". Although the answer may have been technically correct, she clearly meant dick head but had forgotten the right expression.

Dementia is not generally considered hereditary and that was the number one question I was asked - the percentage is very low. However, if there are numerous close family members with early onset dementia, then it is recommended that you see your GP.

I am sorry I cannot really answer your question, but compare what I am saying with how your partner is.

Thank you all. I vacillate between being convinced that DH needs to go to see the doctor straight away, and convincing myself that it is all normal stress. He cannot add up anything (he got 3As for maths, physics and chemistry A levels, back when 3As were a rare score, plus a law degree and is a qualified solicitor, practising for decades and still practising now).

He just doesn't seem all there to me, and I can't work out if this is normal or abnormal ageing. I have no clue. Sometimes he seems fine. Other times not. I don't want to worry or scare him though, because it is his worst nightmare, ending up like his mother. But equally I want him to get all the help he can if it is happening IYSWIM.

Tricky balance.