My mother in law can carry on an intellectual conversation superbly. She was and is highly intelligent. She has been in the care home for about seven months minus her stays in the hospital for dehydration before being diagnosed and then a major heart attack about four months ago. She has continually the past seven months wanted to go home and been agitated about her living situation. I asked the staff if she is just sundowning when she gets agitated and wants to go home and to know why she is there. The staff said well she is unique, they can be having a stimulating intellectual conversation with her and right in the middle she will change and become argumentative and not remember the conversation they were just having. I realize short term memory is majorly affected with dementia, but the other residents there don't remember this morning, but they do remember one minute ago. On one hand it seems she is late stage dementia, because of this, but her intellectual function is not impaired. Just wondering if this type of behavior and memory loss occurs in most patients? Also she has not memory of her heart attack months ago and her memory of her early life seems to be waning. Just wondered if others have had similar experiences, and how long do demenia patients go on like this before they lose communication skills, on average? Just wondering in general what to expect because it seems there is no way to know from day to day .
Also do a search for Jo Huey's "10 absolutes".
There is now a wealth of information to help us understand and be better caregivers via the internet.
They suspect that my LO has Vascular Dementia and Alzheimers, based on her MRI. She still hasn't had the neuropsychological eval, and may not. She showed signs of dementia years ago, but we didn't get it. Then the very apparent signs surfaced in April of this year. Extreme memory loss, though she had been repeating herself for years. She also has suffered many falls and sustained broken bones. It's been downhill since then.
I have read that a sudden decline is more common with Vascular and that the prognosis is not as good either. Experts have brought up palliative care to me and I'm researching that now.
I see other residents who suffer with dementia, but they have not progressed as much as my LO has from what I have seen in my visits at the facility. If it's strictly Alzheimers, it seems to progress slower than vascular.
I kept wanting my LO to stabilize, but it's one thing after the other, but physical and mental. I hope your case is different. I wish you and your family the best.
Vascular: Cognitive abilities often seem to decline more suddenly related to an event like a stroke or a transient ischemic attack and then remain more stable. These changes are often described as step-like since in between them, brain functioning may hold steady.
My father, is like the one woman stated, he literally cannot remember the third or fourth word into his sentence. Due to a stroke, like your MIL. Everyday is a new day, each day is different. MRI's can possibly find where the damage was done on the brain and what part of the brain is affected.
Stay positive, take "me" time, and remember, one day at a time!!
Alzheimer’s: While cognition can vary somewhat in Alzheimer’s, the person’s ability to think and use his memory gradually declines over time. There is not usually a sudden change from one day to the next.
God Bless, Debbie
Expect the unexpected.
Sorry.
One of my aunts would forget the beginning of her sentence before she got to the end. Literally -- no exaggeration.
Your MIL may become a little more predictable to you as you become more familiar with her behaviors -- but by then they may change.
Not all dementia patients lose communication skills. My husband did not. Some lose it fairly early in the progression.
Each of the 50+ types of dementia is different, and each patient is unique.