This concerns my dad. First off, I want to preface this by saying that I’m not here asking for medical advice in lieu of actually paying a visit to a doctor–he’s been to a doctor; he’s been to a few doctors, in fact. But so far I’m not satisfied that any correct diagnosis has been given. I’m only hoping that someone here may have some suggestions on what the problem may be.
First off, we know he has sleep apnea–a rather severe case of sleep apnea, in fact. He uses a machine (either a BPAP or CPAP, I’m not sure which offhand), but has never adjusted well to it, and generally takes it off in his sleep shortly after falling asleep. In fact, he never seems to get good sleep–it’s not uncommon for him to get up in the morning, get the paper and sit down to read it, then fall back asleep in the chair shortly afterwards. He spends the majority of the day drifting in and out of sleep.
The primary concern, however, is that for a few years now his memory (and his general ability to function in day to day tasks) has been declining.
My first thought was that he is in the earl/mid stages of Alzheimer’s disease, and that may in fact be the case. I’ve read there is a correlation between sleep apnea and Alzheimer’s–though from what I’ve read, no one seems to understand the correlation and whether or not it’s a causal relationship. I’m not absolutely convinced that’s the case, however. For one thing, he was given an EEG (about a year ago, I believe) which apparently showed no indication of Alzheimer’s (though I must admit I’m completely ignorant of what sort of indications an EEG may give of Alzheimer’s–how accurate is such a test for Alzheimer’s?). About a month ago, he was given a psychiatric exam. I’m afraid I don’t know the name or specific type of exam he was given–I will mention what I know, and that’s that some of it involved drawing pictures, as well as being asked to put variously shaped objects into their correspondingly variously shaped holes while blindfolded. Anyway, apparently the results of that test were that, while he does show some cognitive disfunction, it was no more than is typically expected at that age (he’s 70), and was not severe enough to suggest Alzheimer’s.
Some of the symptoms he’s been showing: He gets confused often, particularly when he wakes up (which, as I mentioned before, happens frequently in a single day). It often seems very much like what we all probably have experienced from time to time–You wake up from a very realistic dream, other people are around you, and you insist that whatever you were dreaming was actually happening. Only with him it’s not an occasional thing–it happens several times a day. A common example might be, he wakes up, immediately gets up and starts searching for something; when you ask him what he’s doing, he might say, “You told me to find the (…random item…) for you.” Or he might wake up, head outside, saying something about needing to “turn the lanterns off”.
It goes beyond that, however. A couple of the most striking things I’ve noticed are problems with his visual perception. This past summer I was driving while he was in the car. There was a hill about a half mile in the distance, with a few trees on the ridge. My dad asked, “Are those buzzards up there on the hill?” I told him, “No, dad, I think they’re trees. If they’re buzzards, they’d have to be 50 foot tall buzzards”.
Another time, my mom noticed him staring out the window. She asked him what he was looking at, and he said he was “watching all the lizards in the yard”. My mom told him there weren’t any lizards, so he goes out to prove there are. When he gets out there, he realizes the lizards were just leaves.
Are these visual perception problems a common symptom of Alzheimer’s?
He’s gotten worse in the past few weeks as well. Sometimes when he wakes up he can’t remember where the bathroom is–this is in a house he has lived in for 40 years.
I should also mention that his mother had many of the same problems late in her life (inability to stay awake, poor short term memory).
Anyway, to get to a point, I’m not convinced one way or the other that this is Alzheimer’s. I sometimes wonder whether this could all be caused by a major sleep disorder. One thought that occured to me today is that a lot of his behavior seems to indicate he’s in a dream like state even when he’s awake. This brings me to one specific question (on top of everything else).
No doubt sleep deprivation can lead to hallucinations. I vaguely remember reading about a sleep study (which may be a complete urban legend, which is why I bring it up–to find out if there is any truth to it) in which the subject was allowed to sleep, but once he entered the “dream state” (I’m not sure of the correct term offhand) of sleep he was always awakened. In other words, the subject was allowed to sleep, but not to dream (or even enter the appropriate stage of sleep for dreaming). After a period of time, the subject began to have hallucinations (or some other cognitive disfunction).
Is there any truth to this? I’m wondering if my dad may have a sleep disorder of this nature. Are there any case histories of such a sleeping disorder with similar symptoms?
Anyway, sorry for this being so long; thanks for reading. Any advice/suggestions/speculation would be welcome.