Good Morning @Banjomansmate
It seems that it was quite a rapid decline after the diagnosis, although I think you already knew.
I’m a big believer in the mantra, if you don’t use it, you lose it, but it seems that in BanjoMan’s case, this wasn’t true and it seemed that his musical abilities were some of the first things to sadly be impacted.
I’ve heard that this weight loss is something seen in some cases where someone is suffering with signs of dementia, but never really been able to pinpoint it to any particular form of dementia. A few studies suggested that it may be due to apathy, or loss of taste, or smell, but nothing confirmed. It has been suggested that it could be an early indication of pending dementia problems. However, there seems to be as many studies that contradict this and some go as far as suggesting that obesity may raise the risk of dementia.
BanjoMan sounded like a real character and I would have loved to have known him. It is nice to know he was still singing to the end. I find music and singing something special! It does something to you that nothing else does! It sounds like you were well suited and complemented each other. You had a large following and social scene too! I'm sure he and you, are missed so much!
Autoharp… we had one of them in the cupboard at my last school. It didn’t look that easy to play, but it was good at gathering dust!
I can’t start to imagine what you went through and I’m so sorry for your loss.
Do you still play and get involved with the music groups?
Keep singing!
Richard
The autoharp in the cupboard, was it black with a red rose on it? I have two like that, a nine bar and a twelve bar. They are not that difficult to play ‘cos I can do that but they are devils to tune! To my shame I have to admit that I relied on The Banjoman to tune them for me. As I only really sang with him (he gave me the confidence) I haven’t done anything since his dementia meant we could no longer play together.
I must admit that I was surprised that it was his manual dexterity and musical ability that went, he had been playing and singing for most of his life but it was his form of dementia that affected things. A few months before he died, just before he fell and broke his hip and deteriorated rapidly, he could still remember the date of some very early Bluegrass/ Old time country music recordings and recognise who was singing when we were listening to a CD. He had no idea of that day‘s date or time though!