Alzheimer's Disease Support Group

Although my mom has not been officially diagnosed, she is on Aricept for memory problems. She is only 74. I posted a few days ago that she went off the medicine for about a week. Her GP re-prescribed it and she has been back on it for about 4 days.

She is having trouble.. and it is so hard to really pinpoint what the problem is. She said her thoughts are all bouncing around and she can't get them together. She said she got out of bed yesterday, let her dogs out and got back in bed and really did nothing all day. There is something financial she needs to do (can't quite figure out what she is trying to describe) but she is afraid to do it because she doesn't know if she will do it right.

It seems that she has been more confused and anxious in the past week than previously. Is it common that dementia sufferers just decline so quickly? Could this be a reaction of going on and off Aricept? She is going to the doctor today.

Any help would be appreciated!

Redwood

Yes, it could be that she is having to readjust to Aricept and that is causing the extra confusion. At her "young" age, she really should stay on it regularly. I know it gets annoying when we take a medication and it really does not cause any spectacular improvement, but AD meds don't normally work that way.

Most likely your mom should not be trying to take care of her own finances now. Will she let you help her? Or anyone else? I would not wait until someone takes advantage of her and she loses a lot of money to take some kind of action. You need to be particularly wary of whether she is receiving phone call solicitations for money, because those people are totally without mercy when they find a confused older person to prey on. It may be that nothing at all needs taking care of but she just thinks it does. My mom worried constantly about money and started paying bills she didn't owe. We had to step in. ANW

Thank you ANW. She did go to the doctor and we have an appt with her neurologist in a couple weeks. She does seem to be feeling better now that she has been consistant with the meds.

Mom has a financial advisor (also an old and trusted family friend)who takes care of almost everything. I have all Mom's regular bills set-up as auto payment. I still am not sure what she was referring to but it most likely was something like transferring money or writing a check for cash.

I am not too worried about Mom getting taken advantage of because she has such a hard time understanding what someone is asking (especially on the phone) she would probably never understand what they were saying. As a matter of fact, voice mail is really frustrating for her. She has no idea what the options mean. Normally you have to repeat things multiple times and rephrase them over and over to make her understand what you are saying.

Thanks again for your words - this is a dark and scary place and there is so much going on in my life right now (recently took custody of my 9 year old niece and my sex addicted husband relapsed after 3 years of sobriety). It's all too much sometimes...

Hugs,

Redwood

I got a pleasant surprise yesterday Redwood. My mom has all the same problems with understanding people and things that you indicated with your mom. We have to repeat over and over. Yesterday we had an Easter dinner at her facility and several friends came to join us. We had a very pleasant dinner with Mom. One of our friends brought Easter cards for everyone. Mother's was pretty simple, but she read it out loud! I would never have thought she could still read that well. I'm not saying she understands anything the least bit complicated, so she can't read a book, for instance, but it was nice to know she still can read a bit. ANW

That is interesting, ANW. Brid did wordsearch up to two weeks before she died. But she did not reach the later stages.

Tony

did the doc lower your moms does of meds? you might discuss this..also look out for urinary infections it causes symptoms you wouldnt believe,if she is being more forgetful she might forget to drink water as well and this leads to dehydration..but if this is new and seems to go hand in hand with the med.you might ask if she can take it diffrent or go down doses..sometimes if you cen take the med at night you can sleep throught the fog...

what a great surprise you had..I would encourage family members to make her card often,to keep her mind active and her reading not lost

No, nothing like that. I think she has retained some reading ability all along and because she refused to look at magazines, books, TV, or anything else entertaining, along with losing her writing skills, verbal skills, and so on, I kind of assumed she had lost her reading ability also. Sometimes we assume when we shouldn't! ANW