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In reply to the discussion: Three years ago, I was told by my Dr. that I had Alzheimer's. [View all]ShazzieB
(19,354 posts)My husband's stepmother developed dementia (vascular, I believe) in her later years. She was in her 70s when I met her (when FIL started seeing her after my husband's mother died). I don't know when her dementia started to develop, but there weren't any obvious signs at that time. I suspect that we might have picked up on something sooner if we'd seen her more regularly, but my husband and I moved out of state about 6 years after they got married and then back to Illinois but a different part of the state. All in all, we didn't see them very often for about 9 or 10 years.
By the time we were living relatively close by again, she was beginning to display memory problems, but we didn't realize how serious it was for quite a while. Looking back, there were hints we could have picked up on sooner, but not having had any previous experience being around anyone with dementia, it took us much longer than it perhaps should have.
The first thing that should have tipped me off was when she couldn't recall basic things like how old my daughter was. We were seeing them about once a month by then, and every single visit would start with a flurry of questions about my daughter: How old is she? What grade is she in? etc. I'm embarrassed to admit that the possibility of dementia didn't even occur to me at the time.
The thing that was so obvious that none of us could overlook it was when we would all go out to a restaurant to eat. We would all order our food, and when it came, she was always surprised, because she would have no recollection of having ordered anything! Server would set her plate in front of her and she would be like, "What's that?" If she had merely been forgetful, seeing the food would have served as a reminder, like, "Oh yeah, that's what I ordered!"
To me, one of the chief differences between dementia and pain old forgetfulness is that things that would normally be likely to jog a person's memory don't have that effect. For example, I might walk into a room and forget why I went in there, but at the same time, I would know there was a reason even if I coudn't recall it right then. If I was looking for something like a pair of scissors and happened to see them, my next thought would be, "Oh, there they are. I was looking for those!"
A person with memry loss caused by dementia wouldn't even notice the scissors. They wouldn't just forget the reason they went in there; they would have no recollection that there ever was a reason. They would have no idea why they were there or what they were doing before that. If you go into a room and can't recall why but know that you went there for a real reason, chances are you don't have dementia, imo.
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