Questions about Age-Related Forgetfulness or Dementia

[Saintly_Loser]

@GMANCANADA

The only other thing that I’d add, which I’ve seen both with my mother and other elderly relatives, is that if people suspect or know they’re developing dementia, they can hide it very well. Your friend may be worse than it appears.

If you met my mother and had a short conversation with her, you’d never know she had issues. It was only if you had longer conversations or ones related to past events (whether 3 weeks ago or 30 years) she struggled.

If those topics came up, she’d quickly change the subject or she’d only answer and chat in vague terms. She never used any specific references to other people or specific past events.

In hindsight, that went on for years. She was slowly getting worse and hiding it. It was only when it got to the point where she could no longer hide it, that the people around her (including me) noticed. i.e. having the same verbatim conversation every week and her not realizing it.

Yes indeed. This is exactly what happened with my father. In hindsight, it was clear that he’d been hiding his advancing dementia from us for a couple of years.

After we finally got him to move into a “memory care” facility, we cleaned out his apartment in preparation for selling it. We found all the notes he wrote to himself every day, trying to keep track of stuff and keep up appearances. Hundreds of them.