Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Welcome to Patti's Place.
I'm your host, lisa.
This is a place where we willtalk about grief.
This is a place where we willtalk about grief, dementia,
caregiving and everything inbetween, everything in between
these topics.
I'm your host, lisa, as I said,and Patty's Place is a way for
me to honor my mom.
My mom passed about a year agofrom dementia Alzheimer's and I
(00:39):
realized through that wholeexperience that there's so much
about grief and dementia andcaregiving that not everybody
knows.
Even though it's an individualexperience for everybody, there
are a lot of things that aresimilar.
So I hope that this brings yousome comfort, some peace,
hopefully find some resources orjust feel like, hey, you're not
alone.
So grab yourself a cup of tea,some coffee or, if it's a really
(01:04):
rough day, a glass of wine andlet's talk today.
So today I thought we wouldtalk about what is dementia.
I think that that term is usedso much that sometimes people
don't understand what it is.
This is just a brief overviewof it.
There's so much more to it.
There's tons of research outthere and resources.
I like to go to the Alzheimer'sAssociation website.
(01:25):
It really gives you a lot ofinformation and it breaks it
down really easy.
So what is dementia?
Because you hear that word alot and a lot of times, people,
as you get older, you think, oh,I'm forgetting things.
Do I have Alzheimer's?
Do I have dementia?
Well, not necessarily so.
Dementia is a general term.
It's for the loss of memory,language, problem solving and
(01:49):
other thinking abilities thatare severe enough to interfere
with your daily life.
So Alzheimer's is the mostcommon cause of dementia,
although, to be honest with you,people don't actually get
diagnosed with Alzheimer's untilafter they die and they do an
autopsy.
So think about it like thisDementia is an umbrella.
(02:11):
It's an umbrella term for lossof memory and other thinking
abilities, like I said, that aresevere enough to interfere with
your daily life.
But then there's also differenttypes of dementia, and I think
that's where people sometimesget confused, and it was
confusing for me too.
I mean, believe me, I'm stilllearning about this, even though
I lived through it with my mom.
(02:32):
So if you think of dementia theword as an umbrella, now
there's different types ofdementia.
The one that most people knowabout is Alzheimer's.
Then there's also vascular.
Vascular has to do with theheart.
There's Lewy body, which, ifyou remember that was one of the
forms that they believed RobinWilliams had based on the news
(02:55):
reports.
There's also frontal temporallobe.
There's another form that couldbe from Huntington's, and then
there's also mixed dementia, andthat means that dementia could
be from more than one cause, andit's just such a complex thing.
So you also have to think aboutit like this too.
(03:16):
It's not a single disease.
It's an overall term todescribe a lot of different
symptoms that somebody mightexperience if they're living
with a variety of differentdiseases, including Alzheimer's
disease.
So a lot of times they groupthese under the general term
dementia, so it gets reallyconfusing on things.
(03:37):
So dementia, they think, iscaused by abnormal brain changes
.
To be honest, they really don'tknow what causes it and there
really isn't a cure for it atthis time.
There's tons of research goingon and hopefully at some point
someday we will have a cure andwe'll also know what causes it.
(03:58):
They do know that they think ithas to do with plaque on the
brain.
Now, what causes that?
Nobody's really sure at themoment.
So what happens with dementiais that the symptoms they
trigger a decline in yourthinking skills or, as a lot of
times you'll hear, cognitiveabilities, and these are when
(04:19):
they're severe enough to impairyour daily life and independent
functions.
They could also affect aperson's behavior, feelings and
relationships.
So it's not just, oh, youforgot a date, or you can't
remember where your keys are, oryou're like, oh, what's the
name of that?
Those are all normal, everydayaging.
(04:40):
We all have it.
With dementia, it becomes veryapparent with things.
With my mom, she used to be agreat cook and she didn't know
how to use.
She just didn't know how tocook anymore.
And you might be like, well,that sounds crazy, right, but I
(05:01):
remember one time a story thisreally happened she wanted to
make pizza and so normally shewould get these you know they
call them pizza setups and theywere with the crust and you know
the sauce and everything, andthey were round, and normally
she would just pull out ourround pizza pans and she would
make the pizza and put it in thestove, you know, and we'd have
(05:24):
pizza.
She'd been doing it for I don'tknow 30 years doing this.
Well, she couldn't find theround pans and so what she did
was is, she flipped square pans,so she didn't just put the
crust on the regular pan, sheflipped it.
So it was.
She flipped it over and she putthe crust on the regular pan.
(05:44):
She flipped it.
So it was.
She flipped it over and she putthe crust over the pan.
Well, what happened was is whenshe put it all in the oven, the
oven started to smoke andeverything and the fire alarms
went off and that.
And obviously we didn't havethat pizza.
But she didn't know that shedid that wrong.
(06:05):
And what she said to me, shepulled me aside and she was like
she accused my dad of hidingthe pizza pants.
So it's those types of things.
Or I remember she had it was acookie.
Somebody had given her a cookie, one of those really nice sugar
cookies, and she had it sittingout like her other.
You know knickknacks.
(06:26):
And when I said to her it's acookie, she was like that's not
a cookie, it's you know.
So it's things like that.
Or my mom used to read.
She was a big, big reader.
She would have a book in everysingle room and she just she,
she kind of stopped reading.
As a matter of fact, shestopped herself from driving.
(06:47):
That's another big one too.
But I think what happened wasmy mom was never a big driver,
but she used to like to drive tothe library and I think she
must have got confused or lostor that.
And it just so happened to beat the same time that they my
mom and dad bought a new car,and so she yelled at my dad and
told him that she was nevergoing to drive that car, it was
(07:09):
too big.
Why did he buy that car andeverything?
And looking back, I think thatwas her way of realizing she
must have got lost or somethinglike that, because it was so
upsetting to her that he boughtthe car and she was with him
when he bought the car.
So it's kind of like thingslike that.
My mom also.
She was a big true crime reader.
She was big true crime watchingshows and mysteries and that,
(07:33):
and she was so good at it Likeshe could figure out the killer
when you'd be watching a mysterymovie before anybody else.
And I noticed when I'd bewatching TV with her, she
couldn't follow because she justcouldn't follow it anymore and
she kept asking me the samequestions over and over again
about what was this person andwho did that.
You know who is this.
So it's kind of things likethat that you start to notice.
(07:56):
And she started repeating thesame things over and over again,
telling the same stories andstuff like that.
So it's kind of like thosetypes of things that you start
to notice, not just you don'tremember something.
Those are all normal Now whenyou're breaking down dementia.
Like I said, there's so manydifferent options not options.
(08:16):
There's so many different typesof dementia.
Now, according to theAlzheimer's Association website,
alzheimer's disease accountsfor about 60% to 80% of cases.
Vascular dementia, which theydefine it as it occurs because
of a microscopic bleeding andblood vessel blockage in the
brain.
(08:36):
That's the second most commoncause of dementia.
So those who experience thebrain changes of multiple types
of dementia, typically they willsay they have mixed dementia
and there's many otherconditions that can cause
symptoms of the cognitiveimpairment, but they're not
necessarily dementia.
Some of them are reversiblewith that.
(09:00):
That's why it's so importantthat you go to the doctor to try
to figure this out.
Now, that's not always as easyas it sounds.
My mom refused to go to thedoctor.
She would go to the doctor forall kinds of stuff, but she she
didn't know she had dementia andthat's also another symptom.
(09:23):
It's pretty common actually.
Even if you go on theAlzheimer's website or other
websites about Alzheimer's.
It's pretty common.
It wasn't that she was indenial, she just really didn't
know she had it.
And I tried to get herdiagnosed.
We went to our doctor, ourregular physician, and he was
just going to try to give herthe simple there's a couple
(09:45):
simple memory tests that theycan give you.
It's just questions they askyou.
She refused to answer thequestions, she just refused and
I knew she knew the answers to afew of them.
She refused to answer it.
I tried to get her to go to aneurologist to get her diagnosed
.
She hung up on the neurologist.
She would not go.
So it is a struggle to try toget that dementia diagnosis,
(10:11):
even though the hard part withdementia is you can get them,
you finally get them diagnosed,but there really isn't anything
they can do for you.
So it's one of those that, okay, you have the diagnosis but it
makes you feel even morehelpless with it.
How we finally got my momdiagnosed was she didn't know
(10:37):
who I was and she didn't knowwho my dad was, and so, luckily,
my parents had done livingwills and they had done powers
of attorney ahead of time.
They had decided to do thatbased on some family different
things that happened with ourfamily and they decided they
(10:58):
wanted to do that, based on somefamily different things that
happened with our family, andthey decided they wanted to do
that.
So that way, people, you know,I had it, my dad had it, my mom
had it for that, so we wouldknow what to do.
My dad was finally able toconvince my mom to go to the
emergency room and unfortunatelythis was during COVID.
So it wasn't the best time, butit's what we had, as I said to
my dad, because my dad had areally hard time.
(11:21):
He just kept saying that my momwas, she wasn't that bad.
She just wasn't that bad, eventhough I knew she was, you know.
So finally, when she didn'tknow who he was and she didn't
know who he was and she didn'tknow who I was, okay, we have to
go get her diagnosed.
This is a problem.
As soon as we took her to theemergency room and, as I said,
(11:43):
it was during COVID we weren'table to be with her.
So they diagnosed her within afew hours and she was already in
moderate to severe with it.
So, like I said, it is not aneasy thing to get somebody
diagnosed.
Hopefully you're able at somepoint if you notice these things
(12:05):
, you know that you can get themto even just their primary
doctor and they can give you asimple test to see.
And then a neurologist has someother simple test and then
typically what happens is thereis a longer test that people
will go to.
It takes about two hours andthey can kind of they can
diagnose more as to how far youare and things like that with
(12:29):
dementia.
For that.
So a lot of times peoplesometimes will think, oh,
dementia, you're just goingsenile or something.
It isn't.
It is like I said, it isdifferent for it.
So some different.
If you're like, okay, that'sgreat, but how do I know what do
I look for?
So again, if you go on theAlzheimer's website, alzheimer's
(12:52):
Association, these are somesymptoms or signs of dementia
you can look for.
It's that short-term memory andwhat I mean by that is they
honestly don't remember, likeyou just said something five or
10 minutes ago and the persondoesn't remember and they ask
you the same question over andover and over again.
They can't keep track of theirpurse or their wallet.
(13:13):
They keep losing it, or theirphone.
You know not.
You know, some people justalways lose their phone.
But this is different.
It's like consistently with it,somebody who used to always be
able to pay their bills on timeand keep track of those things.
They can't do it anymore.
Like the bills become late,they don't know where they are,
(13:33):
they don't know how to keeptrack of it, planning and
preparing meals, like I gavethat example with my mom, with
it Remembering appointments,like she just forgot, she didn't
know.
My mom used to be somebody whowas always good about
remembering people's birthdaysand holidays and all of that,
and she didn't remember anymoreand I had to tell her and she
(13:56):
just didn't.
Or they get confused really easy, especially like traveling out
of the neighborhood.
There's a lot of stories wherepeople they got lost.
They were walking or they weredriving and they didn't know
where they were anymore.
And one story with my mom.
My mom and I used to alwayslike to go shopping together and
usually we would go to the samestore over and over again and
(14:18):
I'd go in one section, she'd goin another section and then we
would meet.
And I noticed, probably one ofthe last times her and I went
shopping, I turned around andthere she was like right by me.
She didn't want to go look forherself or anything, and I think
it's because she felt she feltconfused, she didn't know where
she was and she needed to hangon to me.
So she knew you know.
(14:39):
So she felt safe.
And I think too, a lot of timeswhen somebody has dementia it's
hard.
It's hard on the person, it'shard on the family members, hard
on the caretakers, and I thinkwe have to sometimes think about
things from the person who hasdementia.
(15:00):
As they progress, it's hard forthem to be in groups or in
stores or things like that, oreven coming to holidays.
It's hard for them becausethere's too much going on and
they can't follow.
It becomes very overwhelmingfor them with it and the
symptoms are progressive.
(15:21):
So that means that it mightstart out slow, really slow, but
they gradually will get worseover time.
So when someone has thatdiagnosis it's frustrating
because it isn't like when youhear cancer.
You think, okay, I can do stepsone, two and three and maybe
(15:43):
I'll go on remission or maybethis will cure me.
Or oh, this has a good ratedementia.
They're just there, isn't there, really isn't.
So they really don't know whatcauses it right now.
There's lots of research andlots of clinical studies.
They just know that somehow thedamage interferes with the
(16:04):
ability of the brain cells tocommunicate with each other.
One of the I've had some peopledescribe it to me one of the
hospice nurses and one of my momended up in memory care and one
of the memory care directorsexplained things like this.
The memory care director saidthink about it like this A
person with dementia isrelearning everything every five
(16:25):
minutes because they don'tremember.
So they're constantlyrelearning, which is why a lot
of times they're tired and theysleep a lot.
The hospice nurse once said toothat.
Think about it like this theirbrain, the circuits, are like
shutting down as they click offon different things.
So dementia is not an emotionalthing, it's not a mental health
(16:49):
thing.
It is a physical disease withthe brain.
Their brains are dying in manydifferent ways, if you need that
kind of an image for it, andall of them are different.
There are some things that aresimilar that people have
Symptoms.
A lot of times people withdementia they think that you
(17:14):
know their significant other ischeating on them or they think
that they're stealing theirmoney.
My mom was convinced my dad wascheating on her and she was
convinced that my dad wasstealing all her money.
My dad was not doing either oneof those things, so what he did
with the money part is he evenwrote it all out for her to show
her, and then he sent that tome and I would show her that.
(17:38):
But she would get really upsetbecause she was just so
convinced he was stealing fromher.
One of the things that finallyhelped with my mom and for some
reason this worked.
She listened to me where Iwould tell her that she didn't
need to worry about her moneybecause I lived across the
street from a bank and I hadaccess to her money and if she
(18:01):
needed it I could go get it Meand her dog could go get her
money at any time, and thatcalmed her down and made her
feel happy.
So sometimes I think that whenyou're talking to a person with
dementia, if you realize they'rehaving those two different
things, you sometimes just haveto find what will make them calm
(18:22):
down, even though you know thatthose things aren't happening.
But to them it's real and thoseare things you need to think
about.
So a lot of times too, most ofthe changes with dementia in the
brain, they're permanent andthey worsen over time.
So you need to think about itlike that.
So the thinking and the memoryproblems, they're caused by some
(18:46):
conditions.
They could be depression.
There could be some moremedication side effects and
different things and, as wetalked about, the diagnosis
typically has to come from aneurologist, a psychiatrist, a
psychologist or a geriatrician.
Most people go with theneurologist for that.
So it isn't something that Ijust think that when you're
(19:10):
looking at dementia, it'sdefinitely something you want to
.
You want to find the rightthing.
You don't want to argue.
And it was hard for me because Iknew something was wrong with
my mom and I couldn't get herdiagnosed.
She would not go and I knew itwasn't my mom.
(19:30):
I could tell these things weremore than just normal age and my
mom wasn't even that old.
When my mom passed she was 10days short of turning 76.
And I know that she had thesesymptoms probably for close to
seven to 10 years.
So she was in her mid 60s.
She was considered more likeearly onset.
She was not old and it killedme that I knew she this wasn't
(19:56):
right, but I couldn't get her togo to the doctor and my dad had
a really hard time with gettingher to go because he just
didn't want to accept it and soit's hard.
It's not an easy thing if yousee that your loved one is
suffering with stuff.
So the more you can find outabout dementia and research and
(20:17):
really look at it and don't getangry with them, hopefully the
easier it is to figure out howto get them help as best as you
can for those things for it.
So, as I said, if you thinkabout dementia, it's an umbrella
and there's the differentdiseases that can, different
(20:43):
forms of dementia that areunderneath it.
So dementia is the umbrella.
Then the different types areAlzheimer's vascular, lewy body,
frontal, temporal, and thenthere's some other ones that
might include Huntington's, andthen there's also what's called
the mixed dementia, where theymay have dementia, might be from
(21:05):
more than one cause with it,for more than one cause with it,
so, and they typically cannotdiagnose Alzheimer's until the
person has passed and they do apathology on their brain with it
.
So I know a lot of times peopleuse those words back and forth
dementia, alzheimer's and allthat.
So dementia is the umbrella andthe different types.
(21:28):
So as we continue on withPatty's Place, we'll go into
more details on dementia andthings like that, because I just
think it's such a big topicthat we need to talk about, but
I didn't want to overwhelm you,so hopefully this has been
informative and next time we'regoing to talk about some things
on how to take care of peoplewith dementia or different tips
for it.
(21:48):
So I look forward to seeing younext time right here on Patty's
Place.
Woo, woo, woo.
Welcome to Patti's Place.
I'm your host, lisa.
This is a place where we willtalk about grief.
This is a place where we willtalk about grief, dementia,
caregiving and everything inbetween, everything in between
these topics.
I'm your host, lisa, as I said,and Patty's Place is a way for
me to honor my mom.
My mom passed about a year agofrom dementia Alzheimer's and I
(00:39):
realized through that wholeexperience that there's so much
about grief and dementia andcaregiving that not everybody
knows.
Even though it's an individualexperience for everybody, there
are a lot of things that aresimilar.
So I hope that this brings yousome comfort, some peace,
hopefully find some resources orjust feel like, hey, you're not
alone.
So grab yourself a cup of tea,some coffee or, if it's a really
(01:04):
rough day, a glass of wine andlet's talk today.
So today I thought we wouldtalk about what is dementia.
I think that that term is usedso much that sometimes people
don't understand what it is.
This is just a brief overviewof it.
There's so much more to it.
There's tons of research outthere and resources.
I like to go to the Alzheimer'sAssociation website.
(01:25):
It really gives you a lot ofinformation and it breaks it
down really easy.
So what is dementia?
Because you hear that word alot and a lot of times, people,
as you get older, you think, oh,I'm forgetting things.
Do I have Alzheimer's?
Do I have dementia?
Well, not necessarily so.
Dementia is a general term.
It's for the loss of memory,language, problem solving and
(01:49):
other thinking abilities thatare severe enough to interfere
with your daily life.
So Alzheimer's is the mostcommon cause of dementia,
although, to be honest with you,people don't actually get
diagnosed with Alzheimer's untilafter they die and they do an
autopsy.
So think about it like thisDementia is an umbrella.
(02:11):
It's an umbrella term for lossof memory and other thinking
abilities, like I said, that aresevere enough to interfere with
your daily life.
But then there's also differenttypes of dementia, and I think
that's where people sometimesget confused, and it was
confusing for me too.
I mean, believe me, I'm stilllearning about this, even though
I lived through it with my mom.
(02:32):
So if you think of dementia theword as an umbrella, now
there's different types ofdementia.
The one that most people knowabout is Alzheimer's.
Then there's also vascular.
Vascular has to do with theheart.
There's Lewy body, which, ifyou remember that was one of the
forms that they believed RobinWilliams had based on the news
(02:55):
reports.
There's also frontal temporallobe.
There's another form that couldbe from Huntington's, and then
there's also mixed dementia, andthat means that dementia could
be from more than one cause, andit's just such a complex thing.
So you also have to think aboutit like this too.
(03:16):
It's not a single disease.
It's an overall term todescribe a lot of different
symptoms that somebody mightexperience if they're living
with a variety of differentdiseases, including Alzheimer's
disease.
So a lot of times they groupthese under the general term
dementia, so it gets reallyconfusing on things.
(03:37):
So dementia, they think, iscaused by abnormal brain changes
.
To be honest, they really don'tknow what causes it and there
really isn't a cure for it atthis time.
There's tons of research goingon and hopefully at some point
someday we will have a cure andwe'll also know what causes it.
(03:58):
They do know that they think ithas to do with plaque on the
brain.
Now, what causes that?
Nobody's really sure at themoment.
So what happens with dementiais that the symptoms they
trigger a decline in yourthinking skills or, as a lot of
times you'll hear, cognitiveabilities, and these are when
(04:19):
they're severe enough to impairyour daily life and independent
functions.
They could also affect aperson's behavior, feelings and
relationships.
So it's not just, oh, youforgot a date, or you can't
remember where your keys are, oryou're like, oh, what's the
name of that?
Those are all normal, everydayaging.
(04:40):
We all have it.
With dementia, it becomes veryapparent with things.
With my mom, she used to be agreat cook and she didn't know
how to use.
She just didn't know how tocook anymore.
And you might be like, well,that sounds crazy, right, but I
(05:01):
remember one time a story thisreally happened she wanted to
make pizza and so normally shewould get these you know they
call them pizza setups and theywere with the crust and you know
the sauce and everything, andthey were round, and normally
she would just pull out ourround pizza pans and she would
make the pizza and put it in thestove, you know, and we'd have
(05:24):
pizza.
She'd been doing it for I don'tknow 30 years doing this.
Well, she couldn't find theround pans and so what she did
was is, she flipped square pans,so she didn't just put the
crust on the regular pan, sheflipped it.
So it was.
She flipped it over and she putthe crust on the regular pan.
(05:44):
She flipped it.
So it was.
She flipped it over and she putthe crust over the pan.
Well, what happened was is whenshe put it all in the oven, the
oven started to smoke andeverything and the fire alarms
went off and that.
And obviously we didn't havethat pizza.
But she didn't know that shedid that wrong.
(06:05):
And what she said to me, shepulled me aside and she was like
she accused my dad of hidingthe pizza pants.
So it's those types of things.
Or I remember she had it was acookie.
Somebody had given her a cookie, one of those really nice sugar
cookies, and she had it sittingout like her other.
You know knickknacks.
(06:26):
And when I said to her it's acookie, she was like that's not
a cookie, it's you know.
So it's things like that.
Or my mom used to read.
She was a big, big reader.
She would have a book in everysingle room and she just she,
she kind of stopped reading.
As a matter of fact, shestopped herself from driving.
(06:47):
That's another big one too.
But I think what happened wasmy mom was never a big driver,
but she used to like to drive tothe library and I think she
must have got confused or lostor that.
And it just so happened to beat the same time that they my
mom and dad bought a new car,and so she yelled at my dad and
told him that she was nevergoing to drive that car, it was
(07:09):
too big.
Why did he buy that car andeverything?
And looking back, I think thatwas her way of realizing she
must have got lost or somethinglike that, because it was so
upsetting to her that he boughtthe car and she was with him
when he bought the car.
So it's kind of like thingslike that.
My mom also.
She was a big true crime reader.
She was big true crime watchingshows and mysteries and that,
(07:33):
and she was so good at it Likeshe could figure out the killer
when you'd be watching a mysterymovie before anybody else.
And I noticed when I'd bewatching TV with her, she
couldn't follow because she justcouldn't follow it anymore and
she kept asking me the samequestions over and over again
about what was this person andwho did that.
You know who is this.
So it's kind of things likethat that you start to notice.
(07:56):
And she started repeating thesame things over and over again,
telling the same stories andstuff like that.
So it's kind of like thosetypes of things that you start
to notice, not just you don'tremember something.
Those are all normal Now whenyou're breaking down dementia.
Like I said, there's so manydifferent options not options.
(08:16):
There's so many different typesof dementia.
Now, according to theAlzheimer's Association website,
alzheimer's disease accountsfor about 60% to 80% of cases.
Vascular dementia, which theydefine it as it occurs because
of a microscopic bleeding andblood vessel blockage in the
brain.
(08:36):
That's the second most commoncause of dementia.
So those who experience thebrain changes of multiple types
of dementia, typically they willsay they have mixed dementia
and there's many otherconditions that can cause
symptoms of the cognitiveimpairment, but they're not
necessarily dementia.
Some of them are reversiblewith that.
(09:00):
That's why it's so importantthat you go to the doctor to try
to figure this out.
Now, that's not always as easyas it sounds.
My mom refused to go to thedoctor.
She would go to the doctor forall kinds of stuff, but she she
didn't know she had dementia andthat's also another symptom.
(09:23):
It's pretty common actually.
Even if you go on theAlzheimer's website or other
websites about Alzheimer's.
It's pretty common.
It wasn't that she was indenial, she just really didn't
know she had it.
And I tried to get herdiagnosed.
We went to our doctor, ourregular physician, and he was
just going to try to give herthe simple there's a couple
(09:45):
simple memory tests that theycan give you.
It's just questions they askyou.
She refused to answer thequestions, she just refused and
I knew she knew the answers to afew of them.
She refused to answer it.
I tried to get her to go to aneurologist to get her diagnosed
.
She hung up on the neurologist.
She would not go.
So it is a struggle to try toget that dementia diagnosis,
(10:11):
even though the hard part withdementia is you can get them,
you finally get them diagnosed,but there really isn't anything
they can do for you.
So it's one of those that, okay, you have the diagnosis but it
makes you feel even morehelpless with it.
How we finally got my momdiagnosed was she didn't know
(10:37):
who I was and she didn't knowwho my dad was, and so, luckily,
my parents had done livingwills and they had done powers
of attorney ahead of time.
They had decided to do thatbased on some family different
things that happened with ourfamily and they decided they
(10:58):
wanted to do that, based on somefamily different things that
happened with our family, andthey decided they wanted to do
that.
So that way, people, you know,I had it, my dad had it, my mom
had it for that, so we wouldknow what to do.
My dad was finally able toconvince my mom to go to the
emergency room and unfortunatelythis was during COVID.
So it wasn't the best time, butit's what we had, as I said to
my dad, because my dad had areally hard time.
(11:21):
He just kept saying that my momwas, she wasn't that bad.
She just wasn't that bad, eventhough I knew she was, you know.
So finally, when she didn'tknow who he was and she didn't
know who he was and she didn'tknow who I was, okay, we have to
go get her diagnosed.
This is a problem.
As soon as we took her to theemergency room and, as I said,
(11:43):
it was during COVID we weren'table to be with her.
So they diagnosed her within afew hours and she was already in
moderate to severe with it.
So, like I said, it is not aneasy thing to get somebody
diagnosed.
Hopefully you're able at somepoint if you notice these things
(12:05):
, you know that you can get themto even just their primary
doctor and they can give you asimple test to see.
And then a neurologist has someother simple test and then
typically what happens is thereis a longer test that people
will go to.
It takes about two hours andthey can kind of they can
diagnose more as to how far youare and things like that with
(12:29):
dementia.
For that.
So a lot of times peoplesometimes will think, oh,
dementia, you're just goingsenile or something.
It isn't.
It is like I said, it isdifferent for it.
So some different.
If you're like, okay, that'sgreat, but how do I know what do
I look for?
So again, if you go on theAlzheimer's website, alzheimer's
(12:52):
Association, these are somesymptoms or signs of dementia
you can look for.
It's that short-term memory andwhat I mean by that is they
honestly don't remember, likeyou just said something five or
10 minutes ago and the persondoesn't remember and they ask
you the same question over andover and over again.
They can't keep track of theirpurse or their wallet.
(13:13):
They keep losing it, or theirphone.
You know not.
You know, some people justalways lose their phone.
But this is different.
It's like consistently with it,somebody who used to always be
able to pay their bills on timeand keep track of those things.
They can't do it anymore.
Like the bills become late,they don't know where they are,
(13:33):
they don't know how to keeptrack of it, planning and
preparing meals, like I gavethat example with my mom, with
it Remembering appointments,like she just forgot, she didn't
know.
My mom used to be somebody whowas always good about
remembering people's birthdaysand holidays and all of that,
and she didn't remember anymoreand I had to tell her and she
(13:56):
just didn't.
Or they get confused really easy, especially like traveling out
of the neighborhood.
There's a lot of stories wherepeople they got lost.
They were walking or they weredriving and they didn't know
where they were anymore.
And one story with my mom.
My mom and I used to alwayslike to go shopping together and
usually we would go to the samestore over and over again and
(14:18):
I'd go in one section, she'd goin another section and then we
would meet.
And I noticed, probably one ofthe last times her and I went
shopping, I turned around andthere she was like right by me.
She didn't want to go look forherself or anything, and I think
it's because she felt she feltconfused, she didn't know where
she was and she needed to hangon to me.
So she knew you know.
(14:39):
So she felt safe.
And I think too, a lot of timeswhen somebody has dementia it's
hard.
It's hard on the person, it'shard on the family members, hard
on the caretakers, and I thinkwe have to sometimes think about
things from the person who hasdementia.
(15:00):
As they progress, it's hard forthem to be in groups or in
stores or things like that, oreven coming to holidays.
It's hard for them becausethere's too much going on and
they can't follow.
It becomes very overwhelmingfor them with it and the
symptoms are progressive.
(15:21):
So that means that it mightstart out slow, really slow, but
they gradually will get worseover time.
So when someone has thatdiagnosis it's frustrating
because it isn't like when youhear cancer.
You think, okay, I can do stepsone, two and three and maybe
(15:43):
I'll go on remission or maybethis will cure me.
Or oh, this has a good ratedementia.
They're just there, isn't there, really isn't.
So they really don't know whatcauses it right now.
There's lots of research andlots of clinical studies.
They just know that somehow thedamage interferes with the
(16:04):
ability of the brain cells tocommunicate with each other.
One of the I've had some peopledescribe it to me one of the
hospice nurses and one of my momended up in memory care and one
of the memory care directorsexplained things like this.
The memory care director saidthink about it like this A
person with dementia isrelearning everything every five
(16:25):
minutes because they don'tremember.
So they're constantlyrelearning, which is why a lot
of times they're tired and theysleep a lot.
The hospice nurse once said toothat.
Think about it like this theirbrain, the circuits, are like
shutting down as they click offon different things.
So dementia is not an emotionalthing, it's not a mental health
(16:49):
thing.
It is a physical disease withthe brain.
Their brains are dying in manydifferent ways, if you need that
kind of an image for it, andall of them are different.
There are some things that aresimilar that people have
Symptoms.
A lot of times people withdementia they think that you
(17:14):
know their significant other ischeating on them or they think
that they're stealing theirmoney.
My mom was convinced my dad wascheating on her and she was
convinced that my dad wasstealing all her money.
My dad was not doing either oneof those things, so what he did
with the money part is he evenwrote it all out for her to show
her, and then he sent that tome and I would show her that.
(17:38):
But she would get really upsetbecause she was just so
convinced he was stealing fromher.
One of the things that finallyhelped with my mom and for some
reason this worked.
She listened to me where Iwould tell her that she didn't
need to worry about her moneybecause I lived across the
street from a bank and I hadaccess to her money and if she
(18:01):
needed it I could go get it Meand her dog could go get her
money at any time, and thatcalmed her down and made her
feel happy.
So sometimes I think that whenyou're talking to a person with
dementia, if you realize they'rehaving those two different
things, you sometimes just haveto find what will make them calm
(18:22):
down, even though you know thatthose things aren't happening.
But to them it's real and thoseare things you need to think
about.
So a lot of times too, most ofthe changes with dementia in the
brain, they're permanent andthey worsen over time.
So you need to think about itlike that.
So the thinking and the memoryproblems, they're caused by some
(18:46):
conditions.
They could be depression.
There could be some moremedication side effects and
different things and, as wetalked about, the diagnosis
typically has to come from aneurologist, a psychiatrist, a
psychologist or a geriatrician.
Most people go with theneurologist for that.
So it isn't something that Ijust think that when you're
(19:10):
looking at dementia, it'sdefinitely something you want to
.
You want to find the rightthing.
You don't want to argue.
And it was hard for me because Iknew something was wrong with
my mom and I couldn't get herdiagnosed.
She would not go and I knew itwasn't my mom.
(19:30):
I could tell these things weremore than just normal age and my
mom wasn't even that old.
When my mom passed she was 10days short of turning 76.
And I know that she had thesesymptoms probably for close to
seven to 10 years.
So she was in her mid 60s.
She was considered more likeearly onset.
She was not old and it killedme that I knew she this wasn't
(19:56):
right, but I couldn't get her togo to the doctor and my dad had
a really hard time with gettingher to go because he just
didn't want to accept it and soit's hard.
It's not an easy thing if yousee that your loved one is
suffering with stuff.
So the more you can find outabout dementia and research and
(20:17):
really look at it and don't getangry with them, hopefully the
easier it is to figure out howto get them help as best as you
can for those things for it.
So, as I said, if you thinkabout dementia, it's an umbrella
and there's the differentdiseases that can, different
(20:43):
forms of dementia that areunderneath it.
So dementia is the umbrella.
Then the different types areAlzheimer's vascular, lewy body,
frontal, temporal, and thenthere's some other ones that
might include Huntington's, andthen there's also what's called
the mixed dementia, where theymay have dementia, might be from
(21:05):
more than one cause with it,for more than one cause with it,
so, and they typically cannotdiagnose Alzheimer's until the
person has passed and they do apathology on their brain with it
.
So I know a lot of times peopleuse those words back and forth
dementia, alzheimer's and allthat.
So dementia is the umbrella andthe different types.
(21:28):
So as we continue on withPatty's Place, we'll go into
more details on dementia andthings like that, because I just
think it's such a big topicthat we need to talk about, but
I didn't want to overwhelm you,so hopefully this has been
informative and next time we'regoing to talk about some things
on how to take care of peoplewith dementia or different tips
for it.
(21:48):
So I look forward to seeing younext time right here on Patty's
Place.
Woo, woo, woo.
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