Has anybody on here lost a partner or close relative to Alzheimer’s?
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Haven’t lost anyone to it, but one of my neighbours has it. She’s such a lovely person too, whenever I see her she gives me a huge hug and kiss. With her it’s short term memory - you could have just spoken about something and she’ll forget and ask you the same thing again.
Some argue that heavy metals can increase risk.
Saunas have been shown to lesson risk:
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I didn’t know that 
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Yup my mummy in June 
The difference is Dementia and Alzheimer’s are not the same thing. Dementia is a general term for a decline in cognitive abilities that include memory loss and thinking difficulties. Alzheimer’s is a disease that affects the brain and causes dementia. Alzheimer’s is only one of many types of dementia — each with their own cause.
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My husband had mixed dementia, which is a combination of Alzheimer’s and Vascular dementia - having aspects of each. He was admitted to hospital following a fall, he had forgotten how to walk properly. The dementia advanced rapidly and after being in hospital for 8 weeks he passed away during the night before he was due to be transferred to a hospice - this was on August 10th this year. On his death certificate it says death was due to ‘dementia and frailty of age’.
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Well Carol, I don’t know if my Mum passed away because of Alzheimer’s or just Old age, she was 95.
My Mother suffered and eventually succumb to vascular dementia some years ago. Like all forms of dementia, it’s a vile insipid disease which affects not just the sufferer, but families and their assets as well.
@Pipsqueak … Condolences to you , its early days yet ,you must be feeling the loss.Hope you are coping .
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@pipsqueak you have my deepest sympathy. I hope you have family & friends to support you.
Please PM me if you’d like to chat. x
My husband it at the moderate stage - he doesn’t remember places & people - except his close family of course. I constantly talk to him about the past & sometimes manage to jog his memory. He has become isolated because he can’t make conversation. If we’re in a group of people they mostly ignore him. He just sits & listens but he doesn’t understand. It breaks my heart to see him like this & I know it will get much worse…
My stepmother had Alzheimer’s and I can honestly say it improved her nasty spiteful personality. She was hard work for Dad though in his later years and she outlived him. My sister and I did all we could to help him look after her which was more than she deserved after the way she treated his children.
Yes!
Not Alzheimer’s but Frontotemporal dementia.
I last visited my brother on his Pembs farm xmas 2010. I knew there was something not right and his wife agreed. Within a year he was in a “home”, he lived another 9 or 10 years unable to recognise family/friends, with a tendency for violence, he was drugged up. He died in 2020, refusing to eat. No one will know how much he suffered. I mean, how tormented he was.
My dad had vascular dementia but he died of something else
It is really hard and my love to everyone who has lost loved ones who suffered with and to @Pipsqueak , your recent loss must be so raw
In my experience, Carol, it is a very lonely experience for them as people start to talk over them and not interact
Sometimes it’s better not to try to pull them out of it, which can frighten and confuse them but just go along with their world and comfort them in it
My dad believed there was a third floor to their house and a lift up to it. I think somehow in his mind, his house and the hospital had got intertwined
Anyway, God bless my son for the day I came home from work and I found both of them happily chatting and poking about in the garden
When I asked them what they were doing, my son said “ oh, we’re just looking for the lift door, we think it’s got overgrown, shall we make you a cup of tea now?”
Dad came in and put the kettle on just like the old days and chatted away like normal, really happy
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