If one develops dementia (unless prevented) at a certain age, does that not mean that there must be a transition period to that?
My grandmother suffers no memory loss (can tell childhood stories in detail), yet somehow it is incomprehensibly agreed upon that she suffers from a certain degree of dementia. (the “forgiveness” in speech). She reads newspapers/magazines/the Holy book.
If a person still has his memories, wouldn’t it be self contradictive to be conscious of the fact that you are now “less intelligent” (IE: Oh the ol’ days… when I was smart enough to debate Critique of Cynical reason). If ones memory is still preserved, wouldn’t the only logical explanation be a huge case of sub-conscious denial if the subject is brought up? Or a complete deterioration from the main topic characterized with a one liner “Shame on you calling me stupid…”.
I think that a person with alzhiemers for instance, might know one minute that they’re afflicted, and the next minute not. A couple of weeks ago I stayed with my girlfriend at her grandmother’s because the people who usually sit with her had to take the weekend off. She asked who I was about 1000 times, and when I’d tell her she’d say to me, I know that, just because I’m old doesn’t mean I don’t know things. Then she threatened to call the cops on us because we were sleeping past 9 a.m., then she cried and apologized, while still stating that it was her house, and she made the rules, and if we didn’t follow them she’d call the cops. We proceeded to give her her medication and put her to bed, then go smoke some pot outside.
Yeah. My g/f locked her keys in the car, and we were so far out in the country that I had to pay $120 ,($80 was mileage), for a guy to come open the car. When she got upset and cried, her rich as fuck old grandmother was like, “it’s ok, we’ll fix it even if we have to buy you a new one”.
On another note, I went with a friend who was going to meet her mom after 14 years of not seeing her to the middle of nowhere in Georgia once. When we got there everyone was getting dinner and I was sitting watching the news w/ her grandpa. After about a half hour, someone came in and told me not to pay any attention to him because he had alzhiemers, but he was probably the only person there with any sense at all, and I’m still not sure there was anything wrong w/ this dude.
I can empathize regarding someone close to you having dementia. Some years back my stepdad suffered from a respitory attack and lingered for two weeks in the hospital. My mom being by herself for two days finally was able to recall how to get in contact with my brother and me after the shock of my stepdad had lessened. I believe the shock of him getting sick resulted in my mom having a light stroke. After those two weeks, stepdad died and that caused my mom almost inconsolable grief which I’m sure caused another minor stroke to occur. After the funeral, we convinced our mother to move to where we live because we felt she had no alternative. During the couple of years she stayed with us, her memory deteriorated more. Her memories before our stepdad died were pretty much intact, but her short term was affected. During the times she could remember Joe (her husband), she would ask about him and we would have to remind her he had died. This would cause her to weep uncontrollably for a few minutes. Mom would then settle down and ask about Joe again. This would occur every thirty minutes or so and the heartbreaking iteration happen over and over again. It took several months of this same situation to finally subside.
My heart goes out to people who have family members who suffer from this type of affliction. It’s horrible, because each time the person who has demetia has to relive the same bad siutation like it had newly happened to them. It’s like being locked in a reoccurring nightmare you can’t escape from.
