The Onset of Dementia

Recently a friend asked me, “What was the first sign of dementia with your mother?”

I knew exactly when it was. I wrote the whole story years ago in a post called, “Six Ways to Anywhere.” The gist of the story is that my mother, who never got lost, who had a Rand McNally Atlas lodged in her brain, couldn’t find her way back from the Post Office one day. That single event suddenly shed new light on so many other smaller things that she had done.

Yesterday, when I read what our President had said in response to James Mueller’s death — “Good. I’m glad he’s dead.” — brought me back to another moment in my mother’s dementia. We were at a concert in which one of my daughters was singing. It was in a large church. We settled into a pew with a good view of the stage. Another family was already seated in front of us. A few minutes later, they were joined by an obese woman who settled right in front of my mother. My mother turned to me and said in a loud voice, “THAT WOMAN IS FAT! FAT FAT FAT!” I cringed inside and wanted to leave.

It was her dementia talking. With dementia the filters for what is socially acceptable deteriorate. My mother would never have said that ten years prior, but she said what she thought regardless of propriety.

Our president continues to grow more and more crass and abhorent in what he says. I think he had a modicum of propriety in his first term, but it’s gone.

When we used to ask my mother about something, we knew that she could no longer recollect what that something was when she would “the others.” “The others” did things, took things, were arriving for dinner, had left earlier that day — whatever she started talking about and we questioned her on because it didn’t make sense became the fault of “the others.”

When our president is asked about something that he spoke on the day before and it turns out not to be true or accurate, he defaults to, “I don’t know anything about that.” Honestly, the more I hear him say it, the more it reminds me of my mother and her dementia responses like blaming “the others.”

My father, in his dementia, would be up in the middle of the night — not typing posts on social media because he didn’t do that — but going about his day. Something isn’t right when times of day are mixed up like that.

I sat with my father multiple times for the cognitive screening. He was a smart man and passed even though I had seen in him signs of dementia.

In 2016, shortly after Trump became president, we were in the Emergency Room and the nurse asked my father the orientation/cognitive screening questions: Do you know where you are? Do you know what day of the week it is? Do you know who the president is? He answered the first two easily. For the third question he replied, “I refuse to say that awful man’s name.”

My father could ace the longer cognitive test, too. I watched him do it. He was given it multiple times because we knew something was going on. The first time he failed the clock part (draw a clock), his doctor looked up at me and our eyes met. She didn’t need to say anything. I knew.

With my mother, my father had a hard time initially acknowledging that she had dementia. He loved her. He wanted her to be whole. Finally it reached a point where, for her safety and the safety of others, something needed to be done.

Dementia is a sad, sad thing. I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.

However, spending time with people traveling that road makes one more aware and sensitive to those signs.

The people who are closest may not see it. They don’t want to see it. They truly love the person.

Forgetting or confusing names — like Greenland and Iceland — are a sign. Falling asleep in the day and being overly active at night — that is, confusing night and day — are a sign. Rambling, unable to focus or stay on task — these are signs.

“Good. I’m glad he’s dead.” — Those are not the words of a healthy human being. It’s a sign.