Dementia Support Group

Hello

My name is Anne... my husband had a brain stem stroke a bit over 3 years ago. He weas disgnosed this week with vascular dementia w/ petit mal seizures. I knew this was going to be the diagnosis, but, when you hear it, it sure makes it all real and now you have to "deal" with it. He has started to have visual and auditory hallucinations, as well as becoming a wee bit verbally rude and abusive towards me while he is speaking to other people. His confusion is pretty bad at times, but, with patience and trying new ways to explain and show him things it is ok, his loss of words and loss of forgetting what he is talking about in the middle of a sentence frustrates him alot, paranoia is also starting to rear its ugly head. Also, his walking seems to be declining rapidly, he no longer does stairs either.

My heart breaks for him, I just want him to be peaceful and alright. Obviously I am sorta new to all this... I know his dementia has progressed quickly in the last 2 months, he had a tia in May and I have noticed since then it has been steadily down hill for him. We have a neuro appt in two weeks, I am compiling a list of things to ask. Right now I am trying to just go day by day and see how that goes. I don't know if this is true or not, but, everything I have been reading states VD prognosis is 5-6 years, please can anyone tell me differently??? Also that there are no medications to slow down the progression, just to treat the underlying cause(s)

I am really confused so if anyone can offer any guidance and/or suggestions I would be so thankful..

Hugs to all Anne

I think some of this may be related to my other post, but treating the underlying causes will slow down the progressing with vascular dementia since they understand better what is actually going on with it than with alzheimer's (though they are researching hard there). Basically blood isn't getting where it needs to go, or not enough is getting through and so parts of the brain are damaged waiting for it. So they try to use diet, exercise (if the person can), and medications to get the blood going well again. It can't fix areas that have already been lost, but the idea is to make blood shortages in the brain stop happening if they can. If that works then they haven't actually directly done anything about the dementia, but they will have definitely slowed the progression (if they could do that perfectly it would stop the progression, but it generally doesn't work THAT well).

I wish I could help you with the prognosis, but I have no idea. Don't take any number as a "for sure" thing though, even if a doctor gives it to you. My Grandma lived several years longer than she was "supposed" to according to the materials a doctor gave us early on after she was diagnosed. My Grandpa would not have lived anywhere near as long as he was "supposed" to for his mental state (his dementia never got past mild impairment), but he took great delight in making all his doctors make predictions about how long he would last and then out lasting them with all his physical problems. So if that is the prognosis (and I don't know), keep in mind that it is a very general thing, there will be people who don't follow it at all (like my family).