Hi, I'm new to the forum but would welcome advice. My mother is 80 and up until a few months ago was caring for my father full time who had a lot of medical problems including the onset of demential himself. My mother isn't in the best of health herself, she too has real issues with health, mobility and memory loss but was caring for my dad full time with little professional support - my dad refused to leave the house or have any help and my mum only left the house if absolutely necessary and only for up to an hour at most maybe once a week. When my dad died my mum was understandably grief stricken and for the first couple of months we all rallied round as much as we could and tried to help her as best as we could, she started to seem a bit better and was talking to neighbours more, started to pop out to the shops etc and we thought she was beginning to improve however now she seems to be rapidly declining. She has begun to act as if my dad is still alive, she talks to him all day and refers to him as 'being asleep' whenever anyone is there, even popping out of the room to 'check on him' regularly. She has stopped going out again as she can't leave him alone, and keeps telling me how exhausted she is from caring for him full time. Then in the last couple of weeks she has begun having regular episodes where she has locked herself out (or thought she had but had the keys on her all the time), lost bank cards and pills (again, found in her handbag or right in front of her) forgotten appointments at the doctor etc. The list is endless and getting worse by the day, she spends her days phoning everyone (starting at the crack of dawn) constantly changing her story every five minutes so nobody knows what is really going on and then when you go round she acts like nothing has happened and that we are making it up and starts getting quite aggressive accusing everyone of being rude to her. We have booked her an appointment at the Doctor after raising concerns which is next week but I'm wondering if anyone else has a similar experience or if anyone has any views on whether this is the start of alzheimers or largely grief related. Both my grandparents had alzheimers and were cared for at home so I've seen it first hand but they never had the grief side of it so it's hard to compare. My brother has expressed thoughts that it could be due to the initial support after my dad died waning a bit - at the beginning she had visitors every day checking on her but this has quietened down now although she still gets several calls a day from family and friends. He has wondered if it is loneliness kicking in and the need for contact as whenever people are physically with her she seems fine but yet she doesn't want to go to bereavement groups etc which would help. Any advice would be appreciated.