I don't know if it's normal or not either Midkid,but my husband's memory sure goes in and out on the same days too.I don't know how many times I have gone into his bedroom and found him watching the same black and white tv show I just saw him watching earlier and when I say "Youv'e already seen that",he gets mad and yells that he has never seen it before....or we have a big conversation about something in the morning and that night when it comes up again,he tells me everything he said before like he's saying it for the first time and sometimes he comes in the den to tell me something and later he will say it again,like it's brand new information,I don't know what's going on in his brain,but I see him getting worse all the time and it worries me.He has not been diagnosed with dementia or anything yet,but something's not clicking.
Yes. I think it will be a good day based on the morning and then I come home after work to find the dog is locked out in the street and the oven has been left on since lunchtime, risking a fire (if I'm really unlucky there is still food in the oven and I have to figure out how to not set off all the smoke alarms.) And then I see mom is despondent because she can't find her toothbrush and has, apparently, been obsessing over the missing toothbrush for some hours in my absence.
That morning she had a lovely chat with her financial advisor and transferred funds appropriately. By afternoon she was whining and moaning about the missing toothbrush, literally on her hands and knees looking for it, and bitterly stuck in a loop of verbiage about how everyone was f'ed up and irresponsible but her. How dare "they" take her toothbrush!
Because the really bad memory moments are still in the minority, we're currently figuring out how to prepare for when they are full time. She's too coherent most of the time for us to petition control of the finances and she doesn't understand how dangerous she is during these lapses. She will cancel doctor's appointments, and lie to any psychiatrist. From her point of view there is not a problem ...because she has little recall of these episodes other than an emotional memory of how everyone is against her and causing her problems.
Today I talked to her about how her doctor relative would no longer be allowed to prescribe controlled drugs to family members. This was being abused and people (i.e. her) were getting medicine that could be very dangerous without a doctor's proper oversight. And my goodness, if she didn't honestly believe no one was getting drugs from the relative. She really forgot that she told the psychiatrist she was weaning off the drugs then stopped seeing the psychiatrist, and lied in order to get those same drugs from a family member so she could take the drugs without medical oversight.
Her usual level of b*tchy deceit doesn't work anymore, at least, because it falls apart during the bad memory moments. (phew.) She is afraid when she doesn't understand things, so she has been self-limiting driving, and other activities, where there's enough complexity to make her feel intimidated when she is confused, so she calls for help. Like when she locked herself in the car at the Whole Foods, she wasn't driving, she was a passenger and went back to the car then got stuck in it. That was another good-to-bad memory and cognition day.
My mother is beginning that slide into dementia and wow, yes, she vacillates between "fine" and "WTH?" within minutes. I know it will just get worse and I'm trying to accept it and not let it get to me.....but it will only be worse.
Those thought processes are just not firing anymore. Sad. I hear the same thing 4 times and my sibs never hear it. Or they do and I don't. She's been OK at hiding it, but lately, her filter has really dropped and she will say "anything" and I am just cringing when she's racially innapropriate or comments VERY LOUDLY about people's weight--her 2 "buugaboos", if you will.
The only saving grace is that she LOOKS 100, and people do seem to sweetly ignore her rude comments. I cringe---but nothing I can do.
I've been taking video and making audio recordings during the bad periods, you may want to document the decline in some way, a video once in a while on your phone is faster than a journal.
Why?
1. It's something I can show a doctor in case this isn't incurable dementia but a micro stroke disorder or something else and we really need to examine the signs of the disease. 2. I need to show the family that I'm not "having problems getting along" and that there is some seriously bad stuff going on. 3. To help me track the decline and say "this is too much, this has gotten much worse. I need to change things now because I'm at my limit."
It is incredibly powerful to play a recording of mom wailing and lost over something that is irrational for her to wail over in terms of getting help from other people. Also, she will do things like use an outdoor insect fogger on the dishes because she "sees bugs." Which means, she is obsessed with the idea of bugs at the time and is irrationally responding. Having a recording where I explained she can't use those chemicals in the house because it will kill the pets and her saying "good I want the pets to die, they deserve to die" carried a lot of weight toward getting proper medical care in order.
In my experience I would say, yes! I have notice with my mother she will remember things fine one minute and in a few hours later her memory went down hill. Example she can tell me how to make a dish that she likes and in a few hours she can't tell me how to make that same dish. If that makes any sense! We can talk about some TV show within a short time she won't even remember we had that conversation about that same TV show.
So yes I have notice my mother fades in and out throughout the day!
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That morning she had a lovely chat with her financial advisor and transferred funds appropriately. By afternoon she was whining and moaning about the missing toothbrush, literally on her hands and knees looking for it, and bitterly stuck in a loop of verbiage about how everyone was f'ed up and irresponsible but her. How dare "they" take her toothbrush!
Because the really bad memory moments are still in the minority, we're currently figuring out how to prepare for when they are full time. She's too coherent most of the time for us to petition control of the finances and she doesn't understand how dangerous she is during these lapses. She will cancel doctor's appointments, and lie to any psychiatrist. From her point of view there is not a problem ...because she has little recall of these episodes other than an emotional memory of how everyone is against her and causing her problems.
Today I talked to her about how her doctor relative would no longer be allowed to prescribe controlled drugs to family members. This was being abused and people (i.e. her) were getting medicine that could be very dangerous without a doctor's proper oversight. And my goodness, if she didn't honestly believe no one was getting drugs from the relative. She really forgot that she told the psychiatrist she was weaning off the drugs then stopped seeing the psychiatrist, and lied in order to get those same drugs from a family member so she could take the drugs without medical oversight.
Her usual level of b*tchy deceit doesn't work anymore, at least, because it falls apart during the bad memory moments. (phew.) She is afraid when she doesn't understand things, so she has been self-limiting driving, and other activities, where there's enough complexity to make her feel intimidated when she is confused, so she calls for help. Like when she locked herself in the car at the Whole Foods, she wasn't driving, she was a passenger and went back to the car then got stuck in it. That was another good-to-bad memory and cognition day.
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Those thought processes are just not firing anymore. Sad. I hear the same thing 4 times and my sibs never hear it. Or they do and I don't. She's been OK at hiding it, but lately, her filter has really dropped and she will say "anything" and I am just cringing when she's racially innapropriate or comments VERY LOUDLY about people's weight--her 2 "buugaboos", if you will.
The only saving grace is that she LOOKS 100, and people do seem to sweetly ignore her rude comments. I cringe---but nothing I can do.
Why?
1. It's something I can show a doctor in case this isn't incurable dementia but a micro stroke disorder or something else and we really need to examine the signs of the disease.
2. I need to show the family that I'm not "having problems getting along" and that there is some seriously bad stuff going on.
3. To help me track the decline and say "this is too much, this has gotten much worse. I need to change things now because I'm at my limit."
It is incredibly powerful to play a recording of mom wailing and lost over something that is irrational for her to wail over in terms of getting help from other people. Also, she will do things like use an outdoor insect fogger on the dishes because she "sees bugs." Which means, she is obsessed with the idea of bugs at the time and is irrationally responding. Having a recording where I explained she can't use those chemicals in the house because it will kill the pets and her saying "good I want the pets to die, they deserve to die" carried a lot of weight toward getting proper medical care in order.
We can talk about some TV show within a short time she won't even remember we had that conversation about that same TV show.
So yes I have notice my mother fades in and out throughout the day!
I hope this helps:)