Hello all,
I've found myself here after googling dementia and I guess it's the kind of thing i've been looking for.
My mother, who is 75, has been suffering from dementia for a couple of years, although this hasn't been officially diagnosed. My brother and i first noticed a change in her short term memory about 2 1/2yrs ago and decided to keep an eye on her, so to speak, and then two years ago she went through two quite major operations within 3 weeks of each other and since then her memory has deteriorated, it was almost as though the trauma of the operations exacerbated the memory condition. So my father took her to her GP and he referred her to the hospital for a scan, but due to the nature of the scan she couldn't go through with it (she's claustrophobic) and the hospital referred her back to the GP since when we have heard nothing from the GP. It's not in my nature, or my fathers, to be forceful with her GP although he is very good with her other health issues. I think what has prompted me to write here is that today my father (who works all day still, he's only 60) told me he came home yesterday to find that my mother, who is usually so meticulous about folding clothes up and placing them neatly in draws and wardrobes, had filled a suitcase full of screwed up clothes and screwed up other items of clothing in drawers and strewn other items across the bed. When my father asked what she had been doing she replied that someone must have got in the house and done it, or the other reason was that I had been round and done it.
This, as you can imagine, is quite alarming and is a huge difference in the behaviour we have become accustomed too. I guess I want to know if this is normal with dementia sufferers as the symptoms progress, and do I need to badger her GP for treatment.
Thanks, any advice would be greatly appreciated
I've found myself here after googling dementia and I guess it's the kind of thing i've been looking for.
My mother, who is 75, has been suffering from dementia for a couple of years, although this hasn't been officially diagnosed. My brother and i first noticed a change in her short term memory about 2 1/2yrs ago and decided to keep an eye on her, so to speak, and then two years ago she went through two quite major operations within 3 weeks of each other and since then her memory has deteriorated, it was almost as though the trauma of the operations exacerbated the memory condition. So my father took her to her GP and he referred her to the hospital for a scan, but due to the nature of the scan she couldn't go through with it (she's claustrophobic) and the hospital referred her back to the GP since when we have heard nothing from the GP. It's not in my nature, or my fathers, to be forceful with her GP although he is very good with her other health issues. I think what has prompted me to write here is that today my father (who works all day still, he's only 60) told me he came home yesterday to find that my mother, who is usually so meticulous about folding clothes up and placing them neatly in draws and wardrobes, had filled a suitcase full of screwed up clothes and screwed up other items of clothing in drawers and strewn other items across the bed. When my father asked what she had been doing she replied that someone must have got in the house and done it, or the other reason was that I had been round and done it.
This, as you can imagine, is quite alarming and is a huge difference in the behaviour we have become accustomed too. I guess I want to know if this is normal with dementia sufferers as the symptoms progress, and do I need to badger her GP for treatment.
Thanks, any advice would be greatly appreciated
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