Is my mother losing her marbles?

[Quattrocento]

I'm a bit worried about my mother. These are the symptoms:

She was always hyper-clean and tidy. Now the house is grubby. The carpets are in a vile condition and the house is a mess.

She is, or was, a very intellectual woman. She's given up reading and just spent an hour eulogising about a shopping channel. I mean WTF, a shopping channel???

I've just come back from the house and it smells of urine. I asked her what the smell was and she said she'd been grilling fish. There is no way that smell was fish. It was urine. I try to be delicate about it and she tells me that her cat took to weeing inside when it was snowing. In her salad days, she'd have thrown the carpet out, and most likely the cat as well, rather than allow that sort of smell to linger.

Bit worried about her tbh. She's also making slightly mad comments, but that might be more or less normal.

WWYD?

How old is your mother?

Oh dear.

I'd talk to any siblings or anyone else you are close to who knows her, first, to see if they have noticed anything amiss.

It could possibly be the onset of something like dementia, it's really common in the elderly. The brain does change significantly when we get older and it shrinks which causes all sorts of problems. Would she let you take her to the GP?

She is 70. There's no history of senility or dementia in the family - although I'm not sure that makes any difference. I really don't know about taking her to the GP - I can see that would be sensible but, y'know cringemaking and probably unforgiveable. I mean she thinks she is perfectly fine.

You need to go to the GP with her so you can discuss what changes you have seen. I don't think dementia is a genetic problem, it's a age related change in the way that the brain functions, IIRC, medication can help. There are other medical conditions, such as dehydration, that can also cause these symptoms so it may not be anything that can't easily be solved.

I think you should get her to the doctor, or maybe phone her GP and arrange for a home visit. It's easy to assume Alzheimer's in someone of your Mum's age, but it could just as likely be down to many other causes from an untreated infection to diabetes. Even dietary imbalances can cause far-reaching symptoms in older people.

In any case, she's not well so she needs medical attention.

Thanks all

This is going to be a very awkward conversation

"Shall we go to the doctors?"

"Why, what's wrong with you?"

"Nothing, I just want to get you checked over. Just to make sure everything's okay."

This is not going to be easy but I can see it makes sense.

It's never an easy thing to do I don't think. So many medical conditions have medication that really helps now, it may be something really easy to treat. She needs checking over though.

Let me know how things go It might be helpful if you had a list of dates/changes in behaviour for the GP, it can be really difficult to remember everything so writing it all down helps.

how is her memory? Is she forgetting recent things but fine with things a long time ago?
How long has this been going on for?

Her memory seems okay ish

No real lapses that I have noticed

Just the behaviour changes. The hygiene thing is so disturbing though.

Ahem

Do you have anyone in common you can speak with? See if they notice anything amiss?

Well my aunt thinks she's being a bit odd. No siblings myself.

I'm wondering if I could make an appointment with her GP on my own

Could she have an eyesight problem? Might explain the grubbiness (I speak from experience...although I have taken to deliberately NOT wearing my glasses so as to avoid dust-bunny guilt).

And it might explain the change in reading habits!

I'm struggling to find an eyesight justification for the shopping channel enthusiasm though

And the sense of smell reduces dramatically as you get older. Maybe she just can't smell the cat wee?

lol @ SpawnChorus, I have just done exactly that! (Hmm, haven't cleaned for ages - I know, I'll take me specs off )

OP, I've rung my mum's GP before now. He was the laziest, most arrogant specimen that ever plagued a local surgery - and Mum was too unwell to realise she was unwell, IYSWIM. Anyway, he paid a house call - every time. One time, she had a severe kidney infection

Not that I'm saying your mother's in the same boat. I just went off a tangent

If you possibly can get her to the GP, do. If there is something wrong, it's best to know asap so treatment can be started.

Hopefully she's ok, and it's just something like eyesight/sense of smell deteriorating. But my granny got a bit like this and it turned out she had brain cancer, which I wish we'd learnt sooner. She was very resistant to being checked out by the GP.

Hope she is ok - you might have to be firm about the smell/mess. It doesn't sound good for her to be living like that.