Dementia signs?

A loss of interest in things. Confusion. Repetitiveness. Trying to cover things up to save face. What have you noticed?

My grandmother had Alzheimer's before she died. Its kinda weird, but the first symptoms we noticed that something was wrong was her personality changed (and not for the good), she quit going to see her friends, and she had balance issues. We didn't know it at the time, but all of those things are symptoms of dementia happening.

My dad has dementia (not super bad, yet) and he forgets random things but nothing really important. Like, he will brush his teeth twice because he didn't recall doing it earlier. He also will randomly forget how to play Dominos (even though he's played for decades). But the next time he plays, he will remember how to do it.

Edited to add: both seemed to quit caring about how they looked (getting haircuts, shaving, we have to force them to shower on the regular) fairly early on. Dad will still attempt - most days - to be presentable, but its definitely not a high priority. 

Forgetting simple things like how to make a cup of tea - knowing she had to do something with a spoon, a cup and putting something in the cup but not knowing what. Not retaining simple instructions, appearing confused by simple routines, being snappy, repeating tasks and conversations. Wanting to look for things they feel they’ve lost- a common one is wanting to ‘go home’. They’re not actually looking for an old home/property but searching for the secure feeling of being home.

I hope your fears are unfounded, truly.

There are many types of dementia. The earliest signs my father noticed with my step mum were a sudden irrational fear of going anywhere alone and constantly locking all the doors, even if dad was just in the garage. Then she became extremely rude to people about their appearance, and became obsessed with beauty. She started spending thousands of dollars on makeup, Botox an fillers. At the same time she became increasingly flirty to men, even strangers. Her walk changed to more of a lopping gait. This all took about 18 months to progress. She then went into a care facility and no longer takes care of herself. She doesn't shower, change her clothes or use the toilet without help or prompting. All through this there have been times where she speaks fluently and with great interest but increasingly she is losing all interest in talking even though she remembers us a lot of the time and we mostly just get a yes to everything we say.

Repeating the same question or statement. At first it was telling us something she had just said 20 minutes earlier. But the interval quickly grew more frequent as her short term memory declined.

We took her on a trip to Charleston that she had helped plan. She kept asking 'what are we going to do Thursday?' (Our last day) and I would tell her that was the day we were going on the garden tour which was the main purpose of the trip. She seemed to have no memory of us picking out which tour we would go on. She was confused about a lot on that trip but things seemed to return to normal when she got home for awhile.

Looking back, there were a couple of other clues. She stopped reading for pleasure. She said she liked large print books so I bought those and she packed them away and didn't read them. I offered many times to take her to the library so she could choose a book and she always made up an excuse. I think she had just gotten to the point that she couldn't remember what she read to follow the story. She eventually stopped reading the paper. The big clue there was she stopped telling me who had died because the obituary was always one of the first things she read.

Also, right after my dad died, she started flirting with men. All men. Young, old, married, single. It made no difference. Being more sexually aggressive is a sign of Alzheimers. That's too strong a term for mother's flirting at least at first. But there was no question that she was behaving differently than she had when she was married.

Seeing those changes is really hard. I’m sorry.

I hope this doesn’t sound silly, but checking for a UTI can be important. They’re more common in older people and can cause behavioral changes that look like dementia.

And sometimes it’s both. My mother-in-law has some dementia—she’s 98 and it began a few years ago—but it worsened. She had a UTI and after being treated went back to her previous level of dementia.

Coincidentally I was reading a light (and not very good) novel recently and in one very brief segment family members were concerned their mother had dementia due to unusual anger and forgetfulness. It turned out to be a UTI. I imagined the author had personal experience with a family member and wanted to slip in a PSA.

The situation with my mother was similar to yours. My mother was always very neat, quiet, independent and a subtle take charge kind of person. About six months to a year after my father died, I started to notice she was wearing clothes with spots or stains. She would never do that. When I asked her about it she just kind of brushed it off, which was out of character too. Just several very subtle signs that could have been attributed to many things.

Some of the bigger signs were when I would come by to see her she always appeared to be sleeping on the couch, something she would never do. She was sleeping a lot so I thought it may be depression though she denied it, but took her to the doctor anyway. Of course he said depression and prescribed Prozac which she refused to take, stating she was not depressed. Then I started to notice other small things, like food she always ate was not touched. I asked her why and she said she did not feel like heating it up, then later told me she was afraid she would start a fire. The truth was she forgot how to use appliances, like the microwave and stove.

Things progressed to to point she was leaving food out, not answering the phone and having issues with hygiene. She would also say she felt insecure and her head was like a cabbage. We hired in-home care but it was awful. We tried a few agencies and the outcome was the same. Some of the caretakers would bring their kids or just be negligent.

This was progression over about a eight year time frame, from my father's death to placement in a facility. First few years after noticing symptoms, she was pretty lucid and we discussed her situation. She said she wanted to be with people like her so we found a good skilled memory care facility where she lived until she died at 96.

I was going to suggest that. Doctors are more than happy to be "the bad guys" when trying to get people to do something they don't want to do.

My bil has it, and the bold part is a big thing.  He gets mad easily.  CAN be violent.  He won't take the dog out.  They live in an apartment, and on the 4th floor at that,and my sister walks with a walker, and can't walk the dog either--so they had to hire a dog walker.  My bil has to be threatened with "no visits" from grandchildren unless you take a shower--and he's never been like that!!  Thankfully, their daughter took away their car, but when he was driving it scared me to death!! 

Definitely!!!  I'm right there with you!!  It's so hard to see my dear bil the way he is now, and have my sister be afraid of him at times.  They have been married for 61 years!! 

Two of the first things that might be seen are an inability to count change and getting lost in areas that are familiar.

I think the trouble with technology was the first sign with my mom.  She had always been on the cutting edge. Then, my brother and his wife gave her a tablet one Christmas and not only could she not figure out how to use it on her own, she couldn't follow what we were telling her when we tried to help her.  

She also developed and inability to be around groups of people, even those she knew well.  If we had a family gathering in our home, she would be the last to arrive and the first to leave. She had always been introverted, but it became extreme.

Later on, she started remembering things that didn't happen.  That grew worse as she declined.  We first noticed it after my stepfather died. He had gone to the doctor for something and the doctor called an ambulance to take him to the ER.  He was doing okay for a couple of days, then coded and was on life support for about 10 days. My mom spent very little time at the hospital, probably due to social anxiety, so I was the one by his side when he died. I think it was telling when he told the nurse he wanted me to be his decision maker. He had been covering her mental decline for years. A few weeks after he died, my mom started telling everyone that they had gone to a party and he had collapsed on the lawn, dying in front of her. To her, this was more real than what really happened and she couldn't comprehend what really happened.

Dementia really sucks.