Early diagnosis

I have touched on this before, but I still feel strongly that the emphasis placed on early diagnosis of dementia is not necessarily helpful. I'm really talking about attempts to diagnose the exact type of dementia which is deemed necessary but is often much more problematic than people realise. I read regularly about people who have been 'diagnosed' after seemingly minimal investigation. Each time we attended the memory clinic a leading expert on dementia told us that there was a definite problem but that an exact diagnosis was not easy. Every avenue was explored until, 11 or 12 years after the initial referral, we did get a diagnosis, for what that was worth. After each appointment I spent time reminding my wife of all the positives that the expert professor had mentioned - he was a very positive guy, urging us to live as good a life as we could. We carried on doing everything we were still able to do, with increasingly frequent adaptations, finding ways to compensate somewhat for the abilities that were failing.

Do I look back at this with regret? Absolutely not! A diagnosis is just a word or two. It's not uncommon for diagnoses to be changed, sometimes more than once as the condition progresses. Drugs may work a bit for some people and help with some of the symptoms. None of them helped S and she had some unpleasant side-effects.

I would just advise other carers to concentrate on what the person they care for can still do and to find ways of compensating for the abilities that are less secure. We have had 16 years since the clinic referral and had some wonderful times. Of course, it's much more difficult now, but life goes on. I hope you will have many more years together.

A sad and disturbing story - An update

Here's the original story:

https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7237408454030911386#editor/target=post;postID=1838612873523825894;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=9;src=postname

For our readers abroad and for anyone else who may have missed it, here is the latest:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10892191/OAP-back-with-wife-after-poisoning-case-is-dropped.html

There are as, always in these cases, many questions left unanswered.  Why did it take three months to reach this conclusion?  Why was he arrested and kept without food and water for seven hours?  Why was he not questioned until late at night? Etc.

I will be watching for any further developments or statements, perhaps in three months.  But I won't be holding my breath.  He is, after all, just a poor and powerless old man of 83.

A sad and disturbing story

This story has been on TV and in various paper.  The Manchester Evening News has an embedded video  -  you can hear the old man's side of the story:

Walter tells his story

It seems clear that the Care Home in question had been under some pressure from the inspectors, the Care Quality Commission:

CQC Report


The Care Home's action may have been influenced by this.

At the very least, there seems to have been an over-reaction by the police and probably the Social Services.

Clearly, when someone has been looking after a loved one on their own for several years they will know a good deal about that person's need and will have been responsible for giving medication.  So what could be more natural than that the carer (the caring doesn't stop), seeing his wife in pain, would administer prescribed medication?

You can understand why some people would rather not grow old.

Madness

I've read online about a disturbing way in which multiple drugs are sometimes prescribed for people living with dementia. This is how it goes, based on an actual example. The first drug is prescribed to deal with dementia symptoms. The person then becomes violent. A drug to reduce the violence is prescribed in addition. The person now starts having frightening hallucinations. A third drug is added, an anti-psychotic which causes the person to become zombie-like. Now, if the first drug has clearly not worked in the way it should have done - which is often the case - surely the obvious, sensible, logical thing to do is to stop it. Instead, the situation is complicated and compounded by the addition of another drug which also worsens the situation. And then another drug is added. Which worsens the situation further. I wonder what the record is for the number of drugs prescribed in this kind of sequence?

Medication frustration

There's a post today from the Alzheimer's Society: http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/showthread.php?63405-Statin-found-to-prevent-memory-problems-caused-by-surgery

Apparently, the commonly prescribed statin, atorvastatin, has been found to reduce inflammation in the brain that occurs after surgery in mice, which can lead to post-operative decline and Alzheimer’s disease.

This could be good news.

But if you google 'statins' you'll find that these drugs, which are prescribed on a massive scale, are possibly implicated in the development of 'memory problems' and everyone knows that memory problems are often the first sign of the onset of dementia. It's a bit like the way in which some drugs which are presribed for a particular condition, include that very condition (as well as many other unpleasant symptoms) amongst their possible side-effects.

 What are we to think?