Can dementia happen suddenly?
I am five hours away from 91yo dad, talk to him nightly. There has been no sign of a stroke from what I can tell over the phone. Last saw him Dec. 26. He was fine.
Last week he started talking about needing to drive to Baltimore to meet someone. He couldn't tell me who, gave vague references as to where. He is waiting for "them" to call and tell him when to come and where to meet. At first I attributed it to being awakened from a dream. (He reads mysteries before bed.) But over the week, he has given me more info. He claims he drove a group of "their people" to South Carolina last year (I do not know of him making a trip like that) and was mad that they never paid him for his time and gas. He says he is supposed to go to a building at the corner of Holiday and Fayette (downtown Baltimore). He gets up every morning and dresses in "church" clothes in anticipation of them calling and telling him it is time to come. Then when they don't call, he decides he might as well go to church.
Tonight when I called, he said he was in bed already because tomorrow he has to drive to Baltimore. I asked where and he didn't know, "they" will tell him. He said maybe Loyola (where he went to college in the late 40s/early 50s).
I have access to his email, home phone, cell phone (on our account) and FB page. I have seen no contacts from anyone I don't know except all the spam calls he gets daily (at least twenty a day, it is ridiculous, and comcast only allows me to block 25 numbers -- and he is a terror with his call blocker beside the phone with the big red button, I am constantly having to get him to unblock doctors and family).
I think of three possibilities:
1 -- He is being scammed (he fell for the grant scam just a few months ago, lost $2,000 before the person at FedEx questioned the address he was sending to).
2 -- Sudden dementia.
3 -- Maybe he has a UTI?
There is just no way he can drive three hours to Baltimore tomorrow and back in the same day. He can't sit comfortably in the car for more than an hour because of his hip.
I plan to call again at 6:00 a.m. (he is usually up by 5:00, I know this because he has called us!). My bil is calling at 8:00 a.m. And a friend is stopping by at 10:00 to check on him. But I think if I get no answer at 6:00 a.m., I might just have to call the police. I know his make and model and year, but I don't know his tag number.
Thoughts?
With iPhones, you can track other phones easily (with permission of course).
T-Mobile has a service called Family Mode that allows the main phones (usually parents) to track locations of the other phones in the family.
I imagine other carriers have something similar.
If he carries his phone with him then you can track it and find out where he is in real time.
This could be a significant scam where he could be in real danger, or he's got a UTI or some kind of dementia. In all of those scenarios, he should not be driving at all.
I'd be in MY car driving there to find out what's going on.
I called dad at 6:00 a.m. He was home. :) He told me that he realized about a half hour after I called that he had been in one of those deep dreams that are hard to shake but by about an hour later he was fully aware. He said he thought he'd call me but then decided it was too late. Oh how I wish he would have called!
My sister calls it a "dream delusion" and sent me some info. (I'm the sibling that contacts dad, my sister prefers to keep some distance due to past history and it is just more peaceful between the two of them with less contact.)
Dementia can suddenly happen, it did with my Mom after she had a fall where she had head trauma. In just a couple of hours she went from being fairly independent and still sharp at 97, to a person who was unable to walk, and her mind was very confused. After the hospital she was placed in rehab, then into a nursing home.
If only Mom would have accepted using a walker. She would claim that was for old people. Dad said he was old, and he got a rolling walker with hand-brakes, which he loved.
Hugs 🤗