Diagnosed with the type of dementia my Dad had. (FTD). Usually diagnosed in younger people, ages 45 - 65 - my dad was in his mid 80’s. Horrible. Loss of speech, inability to regulate impulses. (My dad got an idea in his head and you had to physically hold him back to stop him from doing it). He did know who we were until the very end, so very different from the dementia my mom is suffering from - she doesn’t know who I am - though she feels I am “familiar” somehow - she didn’t believe she had a daughter the last time I saw her. Losing your parents this way is pretty awful.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/02/16...-dementia/index.html

Sad about Willis. I wondered what was up when they said he was retiring because he had aphasia; that's really a symptom and not a disease.

jodi -

My mom probably had what is called vascular dementia. It wasn't easy to watch, but she changed in ways that were manageable, and in some ways better than the person she had been. She became much less worried and nervous, though more reactive in unfamiliar situations. She generally did OK, though.

My friend Leslie has been facing unbelievable hardship...

I met Leslie at the Lutheran Home where my Mom lived. She lost her mom a decade or more ago. She took care of her dad Jim after her mom died. Eventually Jim developed dementia and he moved to my Mom's unit at the LH three months before Mom died. Jim did pretty well at the LH, despite the challenges that dementia and the pandemic threw his way and Leslie's. He passed away last year, in his mid-90s.

While Jim was at the Lutheran Home, Leslie's husband Gene was diagnosed with early onset dementia. He's in his mid-60s and failing quickly. She's one of the most resourceful people I know and she's been dealing with all of this brilliantly but even she admits to being exhausted. She's been taking care of people for twenty years and it's taken its toll on her.

How awful for your friend - to be the caregiver through all of that, and then to have it happen to her spouse. Tragic.

Jodi -

Also, yes, WTG, that sounds awful!

And I was sad to hear the latest details about Bruce Willis as well.

Jodi, WTG: so sad to hear your stories. Makes you monitor your own mind, wondering if you are on a healthy trajectory. Every time you can’t call up a person’s name, you wonder.

quote:

Originally posted by wtg:
She's one of the most resourceful people I know and she's been dealing with all of this brilliantly but even she admits to being exhausted. She's been taking care of people for twenty years and it's taken its toll on her.

I too was struck by the horrible story of your friend - almost unbelievably stressful and demanding. Twenty years of caregiving - so far and still all on her shoulders. Resourceful or not, it sounds like a simply inhumanely impossible situation.

I don't hear anything about siblings sharing the burden either - or children. So sad.

(And deep sympathies for you and jodie too. )

No siblings. No children. She's on her own.