Yes, definitely people drift away. As Martin says, they don’t know how to talk to them, or deal with the behaviour. It’s not a sympathetic disease like cancer. People are more scared of it.
I’m sorry to hear that.I sometimes think the medical profession see a diagnosis of dementia in a completely diferent way to the rest of us. We see a difficult future and hope to make 'living with dementia' positive for our loved ones, as far as we can. The medics seem to see it as 'Terminal, so no point in bothering with anything further. This person will get worse and then they will die.'
I'd say my mother was written off. Actually I'd say she was never written in! She was undiagnosed, had a fall then hospital for a couple of months, then I moved her to a care home. She was diagnosed by a consultant about 6 months later. He had seen her hospital scan then visited mum for an hour (so he said) then phoned me. His diagnosis was initially vascular dementia but after talking to me about mum's increasing struggles over the past 5+ years, he changed that to mixed dementia (Alz + VD.)
Mum was actually very well physically when she went into the CH, though cognitively was completely loopy most of the time. But she could still do a good hostess mode. No medic showed the slightest interest in her dementia from that point. No one asked me how she was, no meds given. A GP visited once a year to visit all residents of the care home and his comment was, 'She's getting worse, isn't she?' He was actually really nice to me, which I appreciated, but basically I was left to watch mum die, which indeed she did, 3 years later.
Maybe it's time for a bit more honesty and a diagnosis of dementia should be followed by a statement of, 'Yes, it's awful and I'm sorry...but there's nothing we can do.'
Of course they do. People with dementia often alienate others in the early stages by being eccentric at best and frankly horrible at worst. People with other illnesses may get a bit ratty but generally aren't that different from their former selves.Do people think that friends drift away from people with dementia more than they do from people with other long term illnesses?