FTD & Alzheimers - Mum’s suffering with both!

[jessicalucia91]

Hi all

I’ve just received my mums diagnosis following her MRI and they’ve concluded that she has FTD & Alzheimer’s. I’m struggling to find any threads (albeit I’m new to this site so not fully sure I know what I’m doing!).

Does anyone have any experience with someone suffering both? I can only really find information relating to one or the other. If so I’d love to chat because in all honesty, I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing and how best to care for her. Any tips would be a great help x

 

[canary]

In a way it doesnt really matter exactly what the diagnosis is - in your mums case it would classed as mixed dementia. Mixed dementia is usually Alzheimers and Vascular, but sometimes it can be Alzheimers and FTD.

My mum had Alzheimers and my OH has symptoms of FTD (although not diagnosed) and I can see that there is a lot of overlap. Its more a question of the symptoms coming in a different order. My advice is to take it bit by bit and deal with the symptoms as they occur, which is about all you can do with any dementia anyway!

Are there any problems that are particularly concerning you at the moment?

 

[Philbo]

Hi @jessicalucia91

Welcome too TP.

As Canary has said, whilst the type of dementia can give some idea of how the person will be affected, the reality can be very different.

My wife was diagnosed with FTD with signs of AZ. In fact during the 2 years she attended the memory clinic, the notes provided varied from FTD, FTD with AZ, Frontal Lobe variant of AZ.

In fact, although she has shown some of the "classic" affects associated with FTD, in many respects, she is atypical. So I agree strongly that it's more about developing coping strategies as and when the person's abilities decline.

I have learnt so much from the good people on TP over the last 5+ years, no matter which variant the person they care for has. So have a good read and ask away.

Regards
Phil

 

[Countryboy]

Hi all

I’ve just received my mums diagnosis following her MRI and they’ve concluded that she has FTD & Alzheimer’s. I’m struggling to find any threads (albeit I’m new to this site so not fully sure I know what I’m doing!).

Does anyone have any experience with someone suffering both? I can only really find information relating to one or the other. If so I’d love to chat because in all honesty, I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing and how best to care for her. Any tips would be a great help x

Hi first of all we haven’t been told mums age ,,
not sure if this is any help I was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in Nov 1999 aged 56½ then in March 2003 after a PET brain scan was diagnosed with loss of volume of frontal-temporal-lobe’s hence FTD the a SPECT bran scan was repeated in April 2004 , so on my GP records I have Alzheimer’s and on my Consultants record’s it says frontal-temporal-dementia, obviously to me it makes no difference it’s just two different ways of saying Dementia and I'm certainly not suffering from either so long as I get the medication they can call it what the like especially when in a few days I will be 76