I'm genuinely concerned that my 15 year old dd may have something like dementia?

[trousersinit]

As far as I can remember her memory has always been exceptionally awful.if you ask her what she's done this morning or yesterday she gets an entirely blank look on her face and gets visibly upset when she says all she can see is black, she finds it extremely confusing not to be able to remember anything. We had always just thought her personality was to be a.bit forgetful but lately is has gotten worse. Today she genuinely could not remeber hwe holiday to Portugal a few months ago and was getting very frustrated by this, we had to show her pics and now she says the memory of.it is vague and blurry. She is extremely creative at English and can recall facts for history, but will have no clue what day it is often! Some points it's even so bad I genuinely thought she was stoned and even drug tested her! She says she constantly feels like she's in a dream and I have no clue what this is, or is this a normal teenage thing?

Poor lass, she must have been feeling awful.

If she has any difficulty swallowing the pills (they can be very large!) Iron can be prescribed in liquid/syrup form.

Also, she'll use up more iron if she has a lot of exercise/sports training and so should take a bit extra beforehand.

Homehelp, are you a qualified doctor? Ive experienced the symptoms the op described because of anemia. It got better with daily intake of the correct dosage of iron, after a few weeks. Perhaps the memory loss is due to disrupted sleep patterns, associated stress or depression, or just general slowing down of cognitive function. I dont know, im not a doctor, but i know that memory loss with anemia is very real. It is probably not listed as one of the 'recognised symptoms' because to self medicate with iron for memory loss would be dangerous.

steppemum - could you explain more about this please "don't worry about the fish oils, it has been pretty solidly disproved."

I think I'd press for a referral to a neurologist too. You said she's always been like this, so maybe anaemia has worsened her memory, but it doesn't seem to be the cause. That honestly doesn't sound normal.

Also, at 15, she is getting close to the age limits for paediatric/children's services, and 16-18 is a notoriously difficult age to access support for young people, because they're seen as too old for children's services and too young for adults... So I'd push for assessment now, if I were you.

My dd has a really bad memory and at the age of 7 was seen by an ed psych who said she'd got the worst "working term" memory he'd ever seen. I'd never even heard of working term memory, we'd gone as we were concerned about dyslexia (which she also has).

Her memory problems seem to be short term stuff. If I send her upstairs to fetch a specific item by the time she's got to the top of the stairs she's forgotten what she's gone for. Her long term memory seems fine so she'd be able to remember holidays, etc. But maybe there is something like what dd has but affects long term memory more???

Take her to the GP though. They can advise or sign post you to an ed psych if they think its needed.

Sorry, just seen that you've been. Hopefully the iron tablets help.

I hope the iron tablets help to, but I know of another girl like Viva's who has shockingly bad "working" memory . Not sure how you can measure how much she improves by easily?

Just asked my DH about this who is Neurologist. He said that you don't forget something like a family holiday because the memory is stored in many different parts of the brain. If someone couldn't remember a recent family holiday they would have to be demented which would mean they couldn't function normally every day and could not look after themselves. He thinks what is more likely is a psychologically traumatic event that would temporarily erase the memory. Or it is a sign of some other psychiatric issue. He recommends seeing the GP and getting referrals to a Neurologist and a Psychiatrist. Sorry, hope this is not too upsetting - remember he is just some random man on the Internet even if he is a Neurologist. He is a specialist in Traumatic Brain Injury and has seen more than 1,000 TBI patients. He is also a specialist in dementia.

Thanks honeyandrum that is fascinating, do you mean a psychological trauma to do with that holiday? Because I was with her pretty much the entire time and she didn't act any differently. Sorry to press but does he have any other idea about what psychiatric issue it could possibly be? In regards to what someone else said,.dd also constantly goes upstairs and then forget what she went up for so has to ask me again.

Honestly it sounds like you just need to insist demand the referrals. The whole area of pscychology and neuro are amazingly complex.

REgardless she needs to be seen by specialists just in case

I've heard of this kind of thing with Coeliac's disease and iron deficiency is also a symptom that. Might be worth looking into?

Trousers he obviously can't diagnose on the internet - also he was throwing lots of thoughts at me! I wouldn't get too overwrought - good news is it sounds unlikely to be any organic disease. He also mentioned drugs but it sounds like you ruled those out. I think see a Neurologist in RL and then she/he can rule out anything organic and send you onto a psychiatrist if need be. As Random says these areas of medicine are heavily interlinked.

Going upstairs and forgetting what you went for is just regular bad memory as far as I know. Forgetting weeks at a time in foreign climes is of a different order.

Also, if it makes you feel better DH is not a child neurologist. So make sure you see one of those i.e. a Neurologist who specializes in children, not a 12 yr old Neurologist.

Wow I'm all over Coeliac disease - is there nothing that it can't do to you? I had a friend diagnosed recently who had alopecia since a teen and she was never tested for Coeliac. Her DS was diagnosed and she finally got her diagnosis.

You drug tested her, how exactly? but have you considered that she may be drinking alcohol to excess?

OP I prob won't explain this very well but please bear with me, the things you have said have made me think about things I have been going through with my daughter and after countless assessments etc they think they have found the prob! I don't understand it all myself or all the medical jargon so will try as best as I can

My 10 year old dd has been doing really badly in maths (were talking due to start secondary this year and works at a math level of a 5 year old, can't even add to ten without her fingers) her English etc is great!

After lots of battles with the school I got a private appointment at the dyslexia reasearch trust and after lots of assessments they found it's something to do with her short term memory! Things like travel sickness, forgetfulness next are all linked to this also if that relates to your dd!

Anyway they think it's something to do with the body clock and my dd is currently having to wear blue glass for 30 mins when she wakes in morning to reset her body clock and also when doing maths work along with talking fish oils , we are only a half way through this trail but it's working her maths has improved at a surprising rate and her forgetfulness has improved.

Sorry I can't give better info but thought it may be something you could look into