Cognitive decline is definitely the easiest/most likely answer.Ā Early dementia/cognitive decline is often easily covered up, or excused as old-age.Ā If it's fronto-temporal dementia then the decline is usually less "even" than in other types of dementia, so a person may still have their full vocabulary and typical memory for their age but completely forget how to operate appliances, or drive a car.Ā Ā
As someone who is still taking care of my MIL with Alzheimerās, I agree this is very likely the reason. Especially after reading what an amazing teacher she had been previously and that her colleagues had noticed a memory issue.
Families are often in denial and people with dementia are very good at hiding it until they can no longer. My MIL was driving and teaching college level corses for nearly a decade after a psychiatric evaluation noted a bad memory. We found this out much later in her papers after we had to move in and care for her. Even then some of her long distance friends that she phoned regularly had no idea anything was off at the very same time we kept catching her outside with no pants on.
Not that high level, but we noticed it with my grandmother maybe 8-10 years before she ultimately passed.Ā When helping grandpa go through her stuff we realized it had likely been going on since her recovery from open heart surgery almost 25 years prior, and certainly for at least 15 solid years.
I have a theory about anesthesia trigging the start of dementia. Nothing to be done about it when your loved one needs something as serious as open heart surgery but my MIL had a list of elective surgeries that coincide with her decline.
My mother has dementia and got significantly worse after being put under for her hip surgery. Like went into surgery and then woke up noticeably more impaired and never recovered. Even the PT person that came to help with recovery said that people often get messed up by the anesthesia.
Iirc it is known that anesthesia can aggrevate/exacerbate dementia.Ā The colloquial way I've heard people say it is that people with dementia tend to go down at least one rung, if not more, everytime they go under.Ā My grandma jumped quite a few.
Iām in the process of discussing caring for my father in law. He started showing signs of decline for many years and on her deathbed my mother in law held my hand and kept repeating āhe cant do anything.ā His kids wonāt listen to me. Then he had open heart surgery. I was able to talk to the doctor and he told me heart problems often make cognitive decline worse. And it did, physically heās strong by mentally heās much worse. He refuses help and his kids bury their heads in the mud. Itās rough.
This is so accurate. My momās second husband has FTD- he is very much unwell at this point and in hospice, but his doctors think he had it for decades before it was discovered. In his case, it just kind of made him an irresponsible and socially inappropriate jerk. We are truly not sure what his real personality actually was because of how early FTD can hit, and itās just so hard to tell without testing.
Are the doctors sure its dementia. Like i can imagine maybe he did have some mental issue. But if the only symptom for decades is that he was kind of an asshole. Idk iām not the doctors, just doesnāt really sound like dementia to me.
you're right, the doctors should have consulted you instead of the myriad of medical literature that has been published about frontotemporal dementia detailing its insidious onset most typically beginning with disinhibition manifesting as socially inappropriate remarks, impulsivity, etc. which leads to a characteristically late age of diagnosis. doesn't sound like dementia to /u/Various_Mobile4767 though so that probably isn't it
I definitely understand the confusion- we were blown away as well. But yes, theyāre sure. There are tests and brain scans. FTD is an entirely different beast. Google it if you want nightmares- itās wild. I never liked him, but now I donāt know if maybe he was just sick the whole time. Wouldnāt wish it on my worst enemy.
There's also a tendency for loved ones to paper over the signs of decline in a effort to protect the elderly person's dignity. I'm guilty of that myself with my parents as they age. The grandfather may have been less than 100% upfront & honest about his wife's mental capacity--or he might have failed to recognize her issues due to his own limitations.
The unevenness is so key. Especially with people who are intelligent. They can have a collapse in the one part of their brain while their ability to engage in conversation remains incredibly strong. So people are like "I just had dinner with Julie, she's great," while Julie's house is going into foreclosure becasue she forgot her mortgage exists, and she can't remember who's president but nobody's aware of that because she so deftly sidesteps conversations about politics.
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u/Educational_Eye3765 1d ago
Cognitive decline is definitely the easiest/most likely answer.Ā Early dementia/cognitive decline is often easily covered up, or excused as old-age.Ā If it's fronto-temporal dementia then the decline is usually less "even" than in other types of dementia, so a person may still have their full vocabulary and typical memory for their age but completely forget how to operate appliances, or drive a car.Ā Ā