What are the odds that BOTH of your parents will develop dementia before even turning 80? OMG.

Upstream, can you get mom tested for a UTI right away?

I'm so sorry to hear that she's having more problems. ((((Hugs)))))

Don't panic, it happens often.

First consider the easy things to deal with. Has she been to the doc recently? Has she been checked for a UTI?

She has taken Benzo's for years/decades (since the 1980s). Most current is Klonopin. She doubled up on them for two weeks, which is not atypical. Well, the pharmacy refused to refill before the 30 days, so she went into withdrawl. After not sleeping for a few days she was hospitalized and given a script for the drug which was filled yesterday. Note: This is not the first time we've been through this, this is her third hospitalization due to mismanagement of Klonopin since March 2018.

She called me at midnight last night thinking people were in her house, and it was day time, and she was going to run to the store and buy some wine. She was shocked that she woke me up. She called my husband's phone at 5 AM this morning and said she wanted to "go home", and saying more weird stuff.

For about the last 6 months she's been having more trouble keeping up with day of the week, time of day, etc. Also, I've been cleaning spoiled food out of her fridge, she does not eat much at all and not on any kind of normal schedule.

She's an alcoholic, mixing wine with Benzos, anti-depressants, sometimes opiods, and cigarettes too, so it's hard to tell what is causing what.

BTW: up until age 70 she was a fitness guru, marathon runner, clean eater, etc.

What a flippin' roller coaster.

So, in answer to the UTI, she was in the hospital a little more than 24 hours ago. I am hoping they checked for that there...

Get her checked for a UTI. If it does turn out to be dementia, what are each of your parent's wishes/living will?

"What is going on in our world that is making stuff like this happen!?!" In my opinion, it's a combination of plastics and chemicals that have become ubiquitous. They are in our food, clothing, furniture, packaging, etc.

Both your parents have lived longer than average. How old were their parents when they died?

NYDaughter, mom's dad died of cancer at 78 but her mom lived very heathily to her mid 90s. Dad's dad died at the age of 40 from something he got working in a factory (waaaay before my time) and his mom died after years with dementia around age 86.

Luckily both parents have long-term care insurance. Excellent coverage that is paying for 100% of my dad's $6,000/month care in memory care.

The problem: I was able to blindside my dad into getting tested cognitively and then moving him into memory care. He didn't really know what hit him. But, mom saw it all (she wanted dad gone from her house as quickly as possible) and she will know what it's all about if I speak with the doctors and have her tested in any way. She has made it clear she will not go anywhere willingly and has threatened suicide for years if I try to move her.

Yes, the suicide threats have been documented and she's been Baker-Acted twice, so that has sort've run it's course.

"She has made it clear she will not go anywhere willingly and has threatened suicide for years if I try to move her." Upstream, remember that your parents lived their lives and made their choices, for better or worse. Also remember that you have choices. Your mother sounds like she operates through fear, obligation and guilt (FOG). Only you can remove yourself from the FOG; she will never change.

Your mother lives alone. When she was discharged from the hospital, what did the discharge planner say about her going home to live alone? What support system satisfied the hospital that she could be discharged home? If supporting her at home falls on you, then you have the choice to be less available next time she lands in the hospital. Let the hospital be the bad guys. You have choices.

Call 911 and report that your mother is displaying delusional behaviors. If she was in the hospital, she almost certainly picked up a uti.

Dementia wasn't in previous generations of my father's family either, but there were several family members who died of strokes in their 60s. Dad was diagnosised with high blood pressure at 42 but never took the medication exactly as prescribed, started having small TIAs in his 50s and developed vascular dementia by age 60. Because his general fitness was good and there's was enough medical attention, he made it to age 88 and died with CHF. Dad's older sister died at 86 from general age related decline; his younger sister developed ALZ at 74 and died at 81.

Although there was no dementia in Mom's family, there have been a couple members with the same small veins she has. One was a cancer survivor and one was an alcoholic. They died in their mid 70s from heart attacks. My mother who never smoked and was physically active, first started having some very minor memory issues at age 78. Brain scans showed no strokes or abnormal brain atrophy but did show small blood vessels in the brain. The short term memory issues didn't really become a problem until age 84 and dementia like symptoms didn't show up until age 86.

Looking over the family trees (genealogy is a hobby and DCs with cause of death are available from around 1900 in most states), in most lines there have always been a couple of members who died relatively young, while the majority lived into their 90s. One example is my alcoholic paternal grandfather died at 63 from a heart attack, as did a smoking younger brother while an older smoking brother died at 78 but also from a heart attack. For years we joked the major risk factor in the family was being male. One sister died from cancer at 58, the other 6 non-smoking sisters lived to 88, 93, 97, 99, and 99 without any dementia.

Personally, I think as medical science has been able to treat heart disease and prolong life, people who would have probably died earlier are now either living to develop dementia related to those diseases or perhaps the treatments/medications that save us from heart disease have side effects we don't understand yet. Seeing the impact of an active lifestyle in my great-aunts and mother's vigor into their 80s, I believe less active lifestyles are having an impact too. We've got a lot of chemicals in our food chain now that wasn't there until after WWII. Some combination seems to making dementia a bigger problem than it's been in earlier generations.

No, this doesn’t seem possible or fair! I’m an only child, and so feel for you. I’m sorry that your mom has taken this wild route. I’d call the case worker at the hospital to double check whether there was a urine test, and speak with him/her frankly about the next time (seems inevitable) your mom comes back so you can possibly get more on the same page.
Good luck.

Have her checked for a UTI. They can cause this to happen.

Personally, I believe we are consuming too many chemicals in our "ready to eat" foods. We no longer cook from scratch and we don't have any idea what we are eating. Sugar used to be a special treat - now you can't find anything that doesn't contain sugars.

Back in the 1970's, Senile Dementia was linked to poor nutrition. Nothing has changed other than you no longer hear of Senile Dementia AND our eating habits have gotten even worse.

You can start by limiting the amount of garbage you eat and they eat or you are seeing your own future in your parents. Believe it or not, 77 & 81 are not ancient - we are living longer but we're not taking care of ourselves.

I limit the amount of "Processed Foods" that I will eat. Because of my need for Nutritional Shakes, they have become the exception to this rule - but other than my Shakes, I am cooking from scratch again.

It's been a year since I've had bread, cake, cookies and pasta - in other words, no wheat products since the wheat is now tampered with, genetically modified and known as GMO Wheat - google it. Yes, I know it's not supposed to be happening anymore but our government found it in June this year:
www.capitalpress.com/ag_sectors/grains/usda-probes-discovery-of-gmo-wheat/article_0f6e80c8-8974-11e9-aff1-43528d15eb20.html

On the bright side, now your parents can now be together in the facility. Do you have all their papers in order, POA, medical directives, will, etc.? If not, try to get this done while you mother can still execute these legal papers. Hopefully she is still able to do so. Since you're handling everything by yourself, try to simplify everything. Take over your parents' financial affairs and set up automatic payments as much as possible. Consolidate accounts where possible. Do everything you can to make your life easier.

You must stop and take action to protect yourself before their behaviors destroy you completely. You must find a way to put them into a facility. It can be done and will take some help from the professionals. You have a right to live your life and should not be burdened with these issues. You must take care of yourself now - that is prime. Do NOT continue this - place them before it is too late for you and feel no guilt. I don't believe people who are mentally gone should live at home and have such impacts on the others still at home.

The bottom line is that people are living way too long due to advances in medical science. In earlier centuries, most people would have been long dead by 80. Dementia is related to aging; 50% of people over age 85 have it. In earlier centuries, they might have called it "senility" or "senile dementia." Now we have names for every specific "type" of dementia.

Your parents will keep getting worse, not better if they have any type of dementia. As others have suggested, you need to get their "ducks in a row" and be prepared to place them in a facility together. It does not matter if they object. You must do it for your own sanity and their protection. It is becoming unsafe for them to live at home.

Upstream, have there been any attempts to wean your mom from her substance use? That combination of things could be causing some of her behavioral issues.

There's a woman here at the MC facility where I work who has alcohol induced dementia. Which her daughter seems to think isn't 'real' dementia, which would be funny if it wasn't so ridiculous. It's real, trust me, she repeats herself continuously and cannot remember ONE thing that is said to her 2 seconds after it's said.

Alcohol destroys brain cells. That's probably why both of your folks are going down that road, sadly.

They're ALREADY to that point, dear Upstream. Prepare now for facility living for your mother. It may take an act of God to get her off Benzos - since she's been abusing them for YEARS.

Why is this happening?

I agree with the replies that site all the chemicals and artificial this and that in our foods and food storage containers. Now microwaving in plastic is a no-no but how many of us did that? And so what if the Teflon pan had a scratch? Cancer evidently, thats so what. Don’t even get me started on GMO foods... soon we’ll no longer need flashlights as everybody will be glowing in the dark! I read every freakin’ label now when buying something new to make sure there’s no GMO’s - and I randomly check the labels on what I do regularly buy to make sure no GMO ingredients sneak in. More and more I’m buying organic, but that can get expensive. But then - you can’t put a price on remaining sane and healthy, can you? Priceless!

I often wonder about all the drugs that are prescribed like candy, too. I once complained to my doctor about always having to get up in the middle of the night to pee... He said there was a pill for that - of course - would I like a prescription? I said “no”. From dealing with my mother and her dementia and her incontinence - and her inability to even recognize when she was peeing - I thought “is it really a good idea to take a pill that tells my brain I don’t have to pee when I likely have a full bladder and it is correctly telling my body - yep, you need to pee”? We take pills to tell our brain we are not in pain when bulging disks press on our nerves. Pills to tell our brain we’re not sad when we’ve lost a loved one. Pills to tell our brain there’s nothing to worry about when we or a loved one is dealing with cancer. Pills to tell our brains that we aren’t hungry when all that’s been eaten is an Atkins bar. You get my point. No wonder, that after years of this the aged brain can’t tell the difference between 3:00am and 3:00pm! Don’t get me wrong - sometimes a pill makes the difference in a life that is intolerable and being able to make it through the day. Just saying.

And, of course in considering what’s happening - is what I’ve come to call “The Autism Effect”. 30 years ago autism was a pretty unknown and mysterious thing - saved for the worst of the worst body rocking, hand flappers. Now, any child not speaking in complete sentences by age three is deemed to fall in the “Spectrum” - that is the Autism Spectrum Disorder- spectrum. Does this reason that anyone over the age of 60 who starts to forget some things - sometimes - is going to be labeled on The Dementia Spectrum? Are we heading there rather than considering that with age, there will be a “normal” age related decline? I don’t know. Again - just saying.

Lastly - and on a personal note and a personal mini rant is your mothers abuse of Klonopin. I asked my doctor for a pill (sigh, based on my above previous sentence) to help with the stress I was feeling when my mothers dementia had peaked and I had to place her in a nursing home. Klonopin. That pill just kicked my azz - and I’m no pill weeny. From the day I took it and for the following two days - when then on the fourth day I would try to recall something that had happened - it was like searching for a memory from 20 years ago. It was all so foggy... it freaked me out to the point I stopped taking it. As for the rant... Everyone gets their shorts in a bunch over “The Opioid Epidemic” these days and all the while drugs like Klonopin, Ativan and the ever popular Xanex are being prescribed and taken like Tic-Tacs. And, in fact - people are often commended for “seeking help” - mentally. But if you're seeking help for physical pain? Forget about it! Everyone is gonna treat you like a junkie. I just don’t get it. I think it’s fair to say there is plenty of abuse in both categories of medication to go around. And, in fact - as far as crime and black market goes - Xanex is just as bad as OxyContin. Something to consider maybe? At least until the hysteria settles down and the pendulum swings back into a more neutral position. Pain is pain. Just saying.

Hey All! I am the original poster. Thank you so much for all of your thoughtful responses. I am on the run this morning so I don't have time to respond to them but I will go back at the end of the day and read in detail.

THE REASON I AM POSTING THIS MORNING: As a follow-up to our conversations in this thread, PLEASE WATCH "THIS IS LIFE" WITH LISA LING ON CNN THIS SUNDAY NIGHT FOR A SPECIAL SHOW ON BENZO DRUGS. SHE ADDED THIS TO HER SERIES AFTER HER FATHER HAD A DEMENTIA-LIKE REACTION TO KLONOPIN AT AGE 79. You can find details on Facebook or I am sure CNN's webpage.

If you haven't done so already, see if you can get your mom in to see the Dr and do some testing. If you present her as someone with dementia that is the diagnosis you will walk away with. Sometimes there are medical reasons for changes that can have interventions. Be sure about what your dealing with before you start planning. Good luck.