Alzheimer's Steals More Than Memory

NY Times ^ | November 2, 2004 | DENISE GRADY

[daybreakcoming]

***What is really in a persons heart comes out through this terrible disease.***

I am having to doubt that you have ever been around Alzheimer's....much less did any one on one care for them. That's one of the most ignorant statements I've ever heard on this forum, bar none.

[dalebert]

There is a condition called NPH that mimics Alzheimer's. Can be found with an MRI. Worth checking our if you have a loved one with problems. NPH is fluid in the brain and there is successful treatment for it.

[SuziQ]

The first three years, including the six months before the diagnosis was made on my Mama, she was unusually gullible to mailed scams. My sisters found out about it when she called my just younger sister's husband telling him to come get her because she had just won a truck. He and my sister went to her house, and through talking to her and surreptituously looking through her things, found out that she'd sent almost $2,000 (that she didn't have) to these scams. Once she returned the first one, she was on ALL their lists. After that, they took the checkbook away, and after almost killing herself and my older sister in the car, they took that away, too. She was very belligerent to them, but not to me, since I didn't live nearby. She was always a very gregarious person and talked a lot, but when she was diagnosed she just shut down. It was like she didn't want to speak because she was afraid that people would discover what was wrong with her.

We hired a woman who lived with Mama and took care of cooking, etc, because she was still ambulatory, but just needed supervision. While she was ugly to my sisters, she was NEVER mean to the caregiver, Mary. Once, when she yelled at Mary for some reason, Mary just told her that she must have mistaken her (Mary) for one of her (Mama's)children. Mama apologized!

When she no longer recognized her house as her own, and when she'd become more medically needy, we put her in a nursing home. She lived for a couple more years; she died this past summer. But she enjoyed the nursing home. She chatted with the nurses, but not so much with the other patients, and was more like her old self. She even still recognized her children and grandchildren, her siblings and some of her nieces and nephews; the great grandkids were too difficult to remember.

When she died this past July, peacefully in her sleep, all of us breathed a prayer of Thanks to God. She had never gotten to a bad stage where she didn't know anyone, so we were grateful for that.

[valkyrieanne]

Wow. Very sobering article.

I don't know that there's anything people are doing that is particularly causing Alzheimers. I recall about 20-25 years ago that Alzheimer's was only diagnosed if you got it in your 50s or 60s *and* had a conclusive brain autopsy. Senility or dementia in older years (i.e. 80s) wasn't considered to be Alzheimer's.

Now the diagnostic criteria seem to be greatly widened, and so practically every loss of memory/personality in old people, even the very old, is considered to be Alzheimer's. Is it? I don't think (correct me if I'm wrong) that there's any conclusive diagnostic way to tell during life.

IMO, we're seeing far more senility of all kinds because people are simply living longer, unlike decades ago when people died more frequently, and more quickly, from strokes & heart attacks.

[mountaineer]

Your personal accounts are so much like our family's - my father, age 69, died 11 years ago on Thanksgiving morning of Alzheimers-caused pneumonia, having lost the ability to swallow, speak, or just about anything else. It was really strange to hear that he had lost even his gag reflex. In his last few years, he was paranoid and delusional, and nothing like the gentle, dignified, successful, accomplished television executive he had been. It is a horrid disease.

[firebrand]

We buried her with both in her pockets.

That is wonderful.

My brother-in-law has it and he goes around drinking everyone else's drink at family get-togethers, can't see the sugarbowl when it's staring right at him, and mistakes grown-ups for children and waves to them in restaurants. He once got lost on a cruise ship and ended up walking out on the runway during a fashion show.

[Roccus]

Hint for restaurants. Mom's hands had contracted to an almost claw-like state. She had a tough time with utensils. We started taking her to a local Chinese restaurant that had an all you can eat smorges-board. All finger foods were the order of the day. Tied a plastic apron around her neck and she would have a ball.

[nmh]

"I am having to doubt that you have ever been around Alzheimer's....much less did any one on one care for them. That's one of the most ignorant statements I've ever heard on this forum, bar none."

Wrong again!

My Grandmother passed away in Feb. of this year. Had she lived to June she would have been 101. She was docile but stubborn. It was a trait we didn't often see but we knew it was there.

She was to the point where even the earlier years weren't so clear any more.

All I can say is if a person is bitter in life they will be bitter in their old age. It's the truth and Alzheimer's will enhance that disposition. People don't want to hear that but it's true. I've seen this with MANY who have Alzheimer's.

[Judith Anne]

I don't believe you. Nothing you have posted on this thread leads me to believe you have any idea about Alzheimer's, whatsoever.

[nmh]

Believe whatever you like.

People with Alzheimer's REGRESS mentally. They don't remember from one minute to the next. The neurons are not mapping anymore to form new memory.

Part of aging includes faculty decline. More often then not they have the skills of someone in pre school or kindergarten. It's simply the body breaking down.

It is also true that how a person lived their life when well will also be the way they die. What I mean by this is their disposition. If they are bitter, they will have a more bitter outlook at their life ends. If they were pleasant and content they will have this disposition when they fade away. This is rather obvious to ANYONE who has cared for a loved one they knew all their life.
Interestingly enough, hospice websites also state this FACT.

[Judith Anne]

I am a nurse. You do not know what you are talking about.

[Doctor Stochastic]

I don't believe you; else you would never have made post 3.

[neverdem]

The diagnostic tests for a patient suspected of having any dementia include a CT or MRI of the brain. Normal-Pressure Hydrocephalus(NPH) should be apparent to the radiologist, neurologist or neurosurgeon considering placement of a shunt.

[dalebert]

A lot of doctors don't detect NPH.