As a nurse, I’ve seen so many patients with dementia who were judges, doctors, lawyers, and professors in their former lives before succumbing
to this disease. Doesn’t skip anyone.
One of my home care patients was a physicist in the Manhattan Project.
My father-in-law who died last year with lewy body dementia, had been an aeronautical engineer with top secret clearances at NASA. It was horribly sad to watch his decline knowing there was nothing to stop it.
My 94 year old uncle a Omaha D-Day 1st wave veteran is in the nursing home with dementia. Last week his wife showed up to visit, she is about bling and barely gets around and he started telling her how pretty she was and talking to her and then asked her if she was married and she said yes and then chatted for a while and he told her his wife was coming to see him from his old hometown and that he lived in that city. He hadn’t lived there in 70 years and after a few minutes he realized she was his wife and just kept right on talking to her.
I had another WWII uncle who passed a few years back with dementia and currently have another uncle who has it as well. Recently I noticed my Dad in his mid-70’s is starting to forget things and repeat himself. I hope this cup passes by him but am preparing for the worst it seems to run in the family.
Any common threads in the folks that do have it? Is there anything a person can do to avoid it?