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Relationships

Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

DGM early dementia?

2 replies

Lampface · 03/03/2022 15:07

My DGM (late seventies) has been exhibiting some signs of early dementia, I think - lots of forgetfulness, being upset at forgetting things, and depression. She lives in another country to my DM & DSis (we are all in UK, think England/NI or similar) and previously has been fine alone, going to lots of regular groups, and being quite adamant that she is very happy where she is.

The problem is now though that due to the depression she is experiencing, she's not getting to her groups, and her friends love her but have their own families and responsibilities so she is not a priority to them in the same way as she would be for us, which is of course affecting her self-esteem, she can be quite sensitive but I think that would upset anyone.

Despite this she has made it very clear that she will not move up. We also can't move down - my DSis is a university student, my DM works full time in a country-specific industry and DP & I are a young couple planning children in the next few years and do not want to raise family in her country. However if she were to move near us we would make time to see her regularly.

One of her reasons why she doesn't want to move up is because my mum is both physically and emotionally quite unavailable. I have told her she is welcome to live close to us as I've taken care of her before after operations etc and she does seem a bit more receptive to that but still seems unsure. Regardless, we can't really force her to move up - she is still of sound mind and her country is her home.

I'm mostly just posting this to find resources on how to support her from afar, and what we can do to generally make sure that she feels she has her family around, despite us being geographically far away. Any tips anyone has for navigating a similar situation? Thank you.

OP posts:
Ozanj · 03/03/2022 15:11

The first step is that any symptoms get evaluated properly . This may require someone in your family to go down because some GPs will immediately go down the dementia route for the elderly without exploring nutritional deficiencies / metabolic conditions / mh conditions.

Lampface · 03/03/2022 15:13

@Ozanj

The first step is that any symptoms get evaluated properly . This may require someone in your family to go down because some GPs will immediately go down the dementia route for the elderly without exploring nutritional deficiencies / metabolic conditions / mh conditions.
Thank you, that's a good idea and definitely something we can do. Worried about her being upset about being taken to GP but we need to do something.
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