Maybe some day. I remember when my MIL was in early stages she said it was like someone turning a light switch on and off. Makes me wonder when they are locked inside themselves if they know it but can't speak it.

It's pervasive in one branch of my family. One of my cousins watched her grandmother, mother, and several aunts destroyed by it over a very long period of time. When she was diagnosed she took her own life with a pistol rather than put her kids through what she endured. Sad but true.

There is research about the on-off process for the disease. Studies relate to hormones.

One article I found..

https://www.livescience.com/27123-hormone-therapy-alzheimer-risk.html

This was a recent topic of conversion with my doctor.

Having worked for several years in a nursing home, I found that there is no one thing that will trip a trigger for people with dementia. (Not all dementias are the Alzeimer's type.)

Don't try to get a person with dementia to be clued in on today. It generally won't work. Allow them to lead a discussion about whatever is important to them and you follow along with simple prompts. For instance: one woman continually felt as though she were six or seven years old and that she wanted anyone to call her mother to take her home from school because she did not feel well. It happened daily. I asked her how to contact her mother and she gave me the phone number and home address and I said that I would get in touch with her mother. That settled her down for an hour or two and then it would occur again. I never told her that she was in her late 80s and that her mother was dead.

What really got me when I was working there were the number of family members who refused to understand the complete disease. "When will we be able to take dad home, again?" was asked on a regular basis. It wasn't going to happen. And yet, they still maintained a glimmer of hope that the disease would suddenly vanish like a bad upper respiratory infection.

Oh gosh that is so sad. I am lucky in that none of my grandparents have it. I can't imagine how heartbreaking it would be to have loved ones not recognize you. My grandma's memory is rapidly declining at an alarming rate and I worry about that. Her long-term memory is sharp but short-term is terrible.

I wonder if those affected have a peaceful life, or if it's frustrating.

My Mom had Alzheimer's and as many of you know I took care of her at home for 10 years until she passed away at home from pancreatic cancer. My Mom knew some of us belonged to her, she didn't recognize my sister when she came to visit but she knew some of my childhood friends by name. We had a ritual we did every night. We looked at pictures of the pets we had and she said their names, she didn't know the new pets at all only the dead ones. I had a picture of George Clooney stuck on her mirror and every night she said Goodnight George. and every night before bed I sang familiar songs to her, she didn't vocalize often during the day but she did sing the last word of each verse in the songs, like row, row, row your boat, she would always say your boat or Daisy, daisy bicycle built for two she would say for two. Some days she would look in the bathroom mirror and just shake her head like she didn't know who she was looking at.

Chi, I think there is a degree of frustration. I don't think there is peace until the later stages. I am thankful my Mom was pretty calm haha except for her wandering or leaving the house when I was down the basement or out in the back yard doing yard work. She sure moved fast. I slept on the couch for 7 years just so I could keep her from leaving the house. I don't know how many calls I got from the guy at the store down the street telling me "Anne, your Mom just got on the bus" hahaha I can laugh about it now. In the beginning I think she knew something was wrong with her brain. She would add up phone numbers that appeared on commercials and was really proud of herself for being able to add them up. I think she was testing her brain. If she had an appointment or someone was picking her up she would stand at the door all ready to go hours before she was going to be picked up. She knew she was early but I don't think she really knew how long she was ready before hand. It took us a long time to get her diagnosed and then she was sent for the 6 hours of testing. When she was diagnosed with the pancreatic cancer (that is a whole different story) the Doctor said it was a Godsend for her that she did have Alzheimer's because she would forget the pain she might be feeling. She only lived 3 months longer after being diagnosed with that. I could write a book

Thank you for sharing yourstory about your Mom, fizzy cherry.

ole joyful

Alzheimer's or dementia -- same long deterioration from mindlessness to death. Are there discussions about the presumed humanity of prolonging this state? What about the impact of the financial burden on the whole family?

My hairdresser's mother's 'nice' care home in Wisconsin was $60K a year last I knew. Her father was draining his life savings. (His wife died this spring.) This made me wonder about the issue. The emotional drain is bad enough. When patients need constant monitoring for *decades*, how do spouses and family cope with the expense?

Do we think twice about prolonging this? Is there a borderline when "There's nobody in there anymore?" How do we balance warehousing the physical remains of a man or woman who will never again be that man or woman, but must await a more physical decline to depart?

I am thinking about the quality of life for the afflicted and the lives of families, who are also afflicted. This ambulatory mindlessness seems completely different from any lingering *physical* deterioration, where you are caring for a mentally and emotionally intact *individual*. How does this differ from maintaining the physical body of a person in a vegetative state? They walk and talk, but have no sense of self. It wounds torturous.

Are there medical ethics discussions on this topic? I have not faced this, and it is too simple to try to analyze from the 'outside'.

There are many causes of dementia. I've read the # is from 50 to 70, depending on who's counting.

Alzheimer can have different effects on different people. Some sufferers become violent with actual personality changes, and it's not safe for family to take care of them at home.

Memory care is extremely expensive where we live. Roughly $9K - $15K per month. It can be very difficult to find facilities who will take Alzheimer patients, whereas dementia patients are less hard to place.

Families affected by the issue of aging parents or spouses should carefully watch the new tax proposals. The elimination of medical deductions, as proposed by the House GOP but NOT the Senate GOP, is of serious concern.

I don't think it is as simple as some receptor merely blocking the memories from being accessed. The mechanism through which Alzheimer's works actually destroys vast swaths of the brain. It is more like a computer hard drive that has crashed. Some files (memories) are simply gone. Some are there but are corrupted and barely readable. Some are intact but are unlinked and not findable. These last ones are the memories that once they are found through random searching, stream forth as a coherent whole, that make it seem like more is there.

I was just talking to a dear friend who lives in another city, yesterday. Her mother, age 93, has Alzheimer's and is in a nursing home. She had 8 children but only recognizes my friend. But that is quite understandable as my friend is the only one of the 8 who regularly visits her! The mother has had pneumonia and I asked my friend if they were treating it. She said she felt they just had to do so. She still recognizes her as her daughter, and as my friend says, her mother is still capable of the occasional "zinger" which shows a sense of humor. Withholding treatment would be unthinkable.

But another dear friend did just that with her mother. But her mother not only had Alzheimer's (and recognized no one!) - she was also schizophrenic. She had already had a Do Not Transport order and her mother still survived a bout of pneumonia. So when she got it again, my friend signed a Do Not Treat order and she did die from the pneumonia. It was a very hard decision to make and money did not enter it in anyway as this was a very wealthy woman.

My mother had this horrid disease and died from it and I fear it terribly every time I forget names, dates, and etc when I used to be so sharp and had a wonderful memory. God, please give me a fast heart attack!

cherryfizz,

Thank you for sharing your mom's end of life story. And, thank you for making the huge sacrifices required of a care giver. You're a reminder that love is long suffering and kind.

I’m so sorry to hear these stories. Thank you for sharing with me.

My grandfather had late onset Alzheimer's. When grandma fell and broke her hip and had to go into a nursing home, the family found a nice group home for grandpa. He became a bit combative at that point -- not really mean, but he wanted to go home very badly. Medication helped. As his disease progressed, he let go of alot of stress and enjoyed watching tv, eating meals, etc. The last time I saw him was a month before his death. He could walk slowly and carefully. He could feed himself but needed supervision -- he tried to suck his mashed peas up through a straw, for example. He didn't know who any of us were. But when my cousin told him she'd bring her little daughter to visit, his face lit up so bright! That gave me hope that grandpa was still himself somewhere deep inside.

I'm hoping that medical research will figure out how to handle this disease before it's my turn.

My mother is 88 with advanced Alzheimers/dementia and is in a memory care facility which costs her $8000 a month. She has enough money to last 4 years and then I don't know what will happen. It is a private facility and she may have to go into government subsidized care.

One thing I can tell you is that she won't be living with any of her 5 children.What cherryfizz did for her mother is laudable, of that there is no doubt. My mother lived with us 3 times, shortterm, and the last time was a year ago for 6 weeks. My husband moved into the basement and my son moved out of the house. It wasn't because of the Alzheimers but because of who my mother is.

Anglophillia - before you cast negative reactions to those 8 children who don't visit there mother you need to thing about the reasons. They may not beable to deal with their mother in her current state or their mother may not have been the greatest mother. Unless you know the background it's important to give children the benefit of the doubt.

I visit my mother once a week as does my brother. My sister who lives out of town as seen our mother once in the past 3 years and my other two sisiters see her every two weeks and they go together as backup and support for one another. That should tell you something about our relationship with our mother.

What do you mean: “who my mother is”?

oh - as a person and not particularly pleasant to her children. And I suppose by now we should be over it but when you're still being told how stupid you are when you're in your early 60's I choose not to spend time with her. I do all her financial stuff, found a place for her to live, sold her house, moved her, take her to her doctors and specialists appts, her hairdresser appts. but I draw the line at spending my free time with her and socializing with her. As we all do.

Sorry if that's TMI.

Blfenton, that is so sad. Is her behavior a result of Alzheimer's?

Very sad. I’m sorry.

Is her behavior a result of Alzheimer's? - No, but it has become worse.

When my father passed away in 2014 due to a respiratory issue, we were surprised how quickly he went from "Oh ... I'm fine" to hospitalized to hospice care to dead. At his funeral service an aunt and uncle were there but the aunt had had Alzheimer's for at least three years at that point and she had no idea where she was, why she was there or who all these people were. She didn't even seem to recognize her husband of 50+ years except as "that guy who takes care of me". It was eye-opening to realize that while it was sad for my father to have passed away so quickly, at least that was vastly better than one of the common alternatives.

Its now three and a half more years into Alzheimer's for this aunt and when last I had heard about her she is still living at home with her husband, and still needing near constant care.

Chisue, you raise some very good questions. In my 40+ years of hospital nursing, I have seen heartbreaking instances of people with advanced dementia being forced to undergo life extending procedures -- such as open heart surgery! -- because their family members felt that it was the right thing to do. But, they fail to see the terror, the pain, the combativeness, the inability to leave drains and IVs and wounds alone, the patient sometimes injuring themselves or a staff member, and so on, because he/she is unable to comprehend what is being done to them or why, and unable to feel safe in such a foreign environment. Then those family members come in and demand that the patient not be receiving sedation or pain medication because it leaves them drowsy when the family wants to interact with them. And, those families often have failed to understand that Alzheimer's, for one, is itself a fatal disease.

One of the ways that medicine has changed in the past 40 years is the way that we respond to fatal illness -- back then, we wouldn't put terminally ill or advanced dementia patients on life support, or ask families if they wanted us to "do everything, including CPR", when we knew that would be futile or merely extending their dying process. We just didn't (and I think society in general didn't) consider it a reasonable option: Now, we are obligated to do just that.

I made the decision on the behalf of both of my parents -- who each had dementia of different types, my mother from repeated cerebellar strokes, my father from microvascular ischemia -- that they would receive comfort care only in the event of a major illness. Therefore, any treatment would be solely for the sake of relieving pain, shortness of breath, and so forth; not to extend life just for the sake of extending life. I feel strongly that we need to respect the gift of life, however we are designed to have our lives end and we need to respect that and recognize that death is sometimes a gift also.

In the news today, Bill Gates has invested $100M to research it. It is among the males in his family and he has seen the struggle up close.

My mother has been in the hospital twice for pneumonia and is combative. I can't imagine if her issue was something even worse than that. We do have papers signed by her before her Alzheimers had progressed too far, outlining the type of care that she will accept and it is very limited.

Bill Gates donation came from his personal money and not from his Charity Foundation.