Very chronic risk, Vascular Dementia

[lovinglife]

I’ll pass it on to my mum next time I do the “mumsit.”

She needs it far more than I.

That would be great! I’m a hugger, everyone gets hugs no matter who they are, I’m sure I scare people sometimes lol I love the relationship you describe you have with your mum it certainly sounds like you both get to have fun even though at times it’s hard

 

[First Officer]

it’s important to me now, is to get people to become aware of this risk. The first person to be treated with insulin in 1922 was only 14 years old and he lasted another 13 years. He did not live long enough to be at risk of vascular dementia. When we got married, my wife was on bovine insulin. That had lasted her for 20 odd years. Then she became allergic to it and we switched to lanine insulin. That lasted for about five years. So she was switched to porkine insulin.. About three years before she starts to show signs of allergy. But that was about the time that recumbent insulin became available for the first time. If artificial insulin had not been developed, she might not have survived the last 20 years. And of course over the past forty years, blood sugar monitoring has improved beyond measure. Whilst people are now used to things like Libre Freestyle, remember that forty years ago it took days to get just one blood sugar measure.

Thanks to the improvements, diabetic management people are now living long enough for the risks of asking dementia to become a parent. So it is extremely important that the medical system and practitioners are very fully aware of the Hidden and silent danger


PS, reminder to self… proofread anything typed by dictation on iPad…..

 

[AloeSvea]

My mother has vascular dementia. I was concerned about her quality of life at the rest home she is in, but am relieved that with the dementia her wants and needs are also greatly shrunk, along with her memory, so she is actually what I would call content. She agrees! Nothing will ever make bingo interesting for her (I agree on that one!), but she is perfectly happy reading the same page over and over in a beloved book, and watching the news, re-reading her favourite magazine - simple things. (The re-reading is of course because one relies on memory to know if one has read the page/book/magazine previously! Something that didn't occur to me until observing these things in my mother.)

Movie-watching, a previous love, has greatly lessened in enjoyment for her, alas, due to the short-term memory loss, but again, she is largely happy being with loved ones (my brother and myself, and our families) just looking at the big colourful images and interpersonal dynamics in the movie, and does not seem to really feel the loss of being able to follow a story in this way.

Because of watching her in her contentment I am not so afraid of vascular dementia. Alzheimers, on the other hand - for me that is another thing.

 

[May Mic]

My dad had vascular dementia & Louis body dementia, he was also blind & deaf, his last 2 years were terrible to watch, was totally bed bound couldn’t move, very difficult to stimulate his mind as he couldn’t see at all or hear that well. He just lay in bed with his thoughts, he used to say that the furniture was moving and that they were changing the walls. He would tell stories from his past over and over - I knew the stories well from his cognitive years so they were always correct if sometimes a little mixed up.

He was in a fantastic care home wilt an amazing dementia unit. They used to tell me that he talked to my mam all day (she’d passed before his dementia) they did dozens of cruises and he was always on a cruise with her or arguing about packing lol - it broke my heart to hear him but then I realised he was in his happy place.

He died Christmas Eve 2019 - the hours before he passed he was able to sit up unaided and move his head & legs. Hadn’t been able to do that for months. He was also very lucid, knew who was there and who we all were. He kept pointing his hand up into the corner, I asked him what he was pointing at and he said “my mam and your mother but I think I can see my dad too” ( his dad passed when he was 10) make of that what you will but it did give me a lot of comfort

That was my Dad too. He had been deaf from his 30's and in old age developed macular degeneration and lost the ability to move about.

His mind wandered. He was usually some happy place, a train station coming home, out in the back woods with old friends, at the air force base for training during the war. He was happy I came to visit and was most impressed that HQ let me on base! We learned not to worry about it, they were pleasant memories although at times it broke our hearts as we knew what was going on with him.

 

[Jaylee]

My mother has vascular dementia. I was concerned about her quality of life at the rest home she is in, but am relieved that with the dementia her wants and needs are also greatly shrunk, along with her memory, so she is actually what I would call content. She agrees! Nothing will ever make bingo interesting for her (I agree on that one!), but she is perfectly happy reading the same page over and over in a beloved book, and watching the news, re-reading her favourite magazine - simple things. (The re-reading is of course because one relies on memory to know if one has read the page/book/magazine previously! Something that didn't occur to me until observing these things in my mother.)

Movie-watching, a previous love, has greatly lessened in enjoyment for her, alas, due to the short-term memory loss, but again, she is largely happy being with loved ones (my brother and myself, and our families) just looking at the big colourful images and interpersonal dynamics in the movie, and does not seem to really feel the loss of being able to follow a story in this way.

Because of watching her in her contentment I am not so afraid of vascular dementia. Alzheimers, on the other hand - for me that is another thing.

From my perspective.

If your mum experiences no anxiety? That’s a plus…

If I see “anything” that looks like that may cause upset. I call on a musical using Alexa
Crickey. Even something with a tune out of her taste will turn the situation around…

 

[lovinglife]

That was my Dad too. He had been deaf from his 30's and in old age developed macular degeneration and lost the ability to move about.

His mind wandered. He was usually some happy place, a train station coming home, out in the back woods with old friends, at the air force base for training during the war. He was happy I came to visit and was most impressed that HQ let me on base! We learned not to worry about it, they were pleasant memories although at times it broke our hearts as we knew what was going on with him.

When dad was in the care home he used to think he was in a hotel, he would complain about them “coming in from the pub” and making a lot of noise - we put it down to the 10pm shift change, also he would say that friends had popped in to see him (some of them long gone) as they’d been in for dinner and heard he was staying there. On the other hand sometimes the girls would tell a friend HAD been in to see him - I treat both scenarios exactly the same, to them it’s real.

Dad did have his very agitated moments too and in his lucid moments would be upset with himself for being “wrong” Less towards the end