Hello everyone, hopefully I'm in the right section, this is my first post so sorry if I'm not!
A family member of Mine, whom I live with, has recently been diagnosed with mixed dementia which includes; severe vascular dementia, more than likely Alzheimer's and Alcohol related brain damage which they think could of happened years ago (he stopped drinking 6 years ago).
We knew something was wrong for a while but as he also had very frequent UTI's our local doctors surgery was less than helpful with helping us get a diagnosis. So now we face a recent diagnosis of "severe vascular dementia" but a lot of the advice and reading out there is related to early stages in regards to what to do when you first get a diagnosis. So I'm here seeking a little bit of help as I feel like I'm drowning in mixed information researching online. I hope someone out there can offer me some advice or even share there own personal experiences if you or someone you care for has been in a similar situation.
Firstly I wanted to clarify, no one has actually explained the stages of dementia to us so it has all been things I've read online from multiple sources but some times its hard to get a clear answer, when a doctor gives a diagnosis of "severe" does that mean we are looking at stage 6?
Secondly, if I am on the right wave length with how stages work, does anyone have any information, links, pages, booklets, anything at all regarding getting a diagnosis whilst being in the realm of severe rather than early stages? Unfortunately a lot of the reading is of the assumption the person is still in a position to live their normal day to day lives but unfortunately we aren't in that situation any more as he is less mobile, less aware and is unable to do a lot of the things recommended by the booklets when it comes to first being diagnosed. This is also magnified by the mixed dementia, ARBD and possible physical frailty as we aren't sure what is being caused by what ailment.
At the moment we just don't know where we stand. We don't know how long, we don't know where we are, and to be honest the more answers we get from doctors the more questions are raised. We know the mixed dementia and ARBD makes the situation harder to navigate but we've just been sort of left to figure it out on our own and its so daunting and confusing.
Sorry for the long first post but its just been floating in my brain for so long now I have so many questions. I have more but I will post them separately so they are topic relevant.
Thank you all in advance x
A family member of Mine, whom I live with, has recently been diagnosed with mixed dementia which includes; severe vascular dementia, more than likely Alzheimer's and Alcohol related brain damage which they think could of happened years ago (he stopped drinking 6 years ago).
We knew something was wrong for a while but as he also had very frequent UTI's our local doctors surgery was less than helpful with helping us get a diagnosis. So now we face a recent diagnosis of "severe vascular dementia" but a lot of the advice and reading out there is related to early stages in regards to what to do when you first get a diagnosis. So I'm here seeking a little bit of help as I feel like I'm drowning in mixed information researching online. I hope someone out there can offer me some advice or even share there own personal experiences if you or someone you care for has been in a similar situation.
Firstly I wanted to clarify, no one has actually explained the stages of dementia to us so it has all been things I've read online from multiple sources but some times its hard to get a clear answer, when a doctor gives a diagnosis of "severe" does that mean we are looking at stage 6?
Secondly, if I am on the right wave length with how stages work, does anyone have any information, links, pages, booklets, anything at all regarding getting a diagnosis whilst being in the realm of severe rather than early stages? Unfortunately a lot of the reading is of the assumption the person is still in a position to live their normal day to day lives but unfortunately we aren't in that situation any more as he is less mobile, less aware and is unable to do a lot of the things recommended by the booklets when it comes to first being diagnosed. This is also magnified by the mixed dementia, ARBD and possible physical frailty as we aren't sure what is being caused by what ailment.
At the moment we just don't know where we stand. We don't know how long, we don't know where we are, and to be honest the more answers we get from doctors the more questions are raised. We know the mixed dementia and ARBD makes the situation harder to navigate but we've just been sort of left to figure it out on our own and its so daunting and confusing.
Sorry for the long first post but its just been floating in my brain for so long now I have so many questions. I have more but I will post them separately so they are topic relevant.
Thank you all in advance x