People with dementia absolutely feel, even when they can't tell you. They sense your approach and your attitude. That's one of five things I wish everybody understood, along with why behavior changes aren't guaranteed.
Acting out dreams in their sleep. Seeing people or animals who aren't there. In Lewy body dementia, these often show up early, sometimes before anyone realizes that's what it is.
A diagnostic secret: when thinking problems start within the first year of the movement problems, it leans more toward Lewy body dementia than Parkinson's disease dementia. The timing says a lot.
"But he's 86. Everybody does this poorly." Families tell me that a lot. Dementia testing compares your loved one to people of the same age and education, not to a college student.
It's the question I get asked more than any other. Dementia isn't technically a diagnosis at all. It's the word for the thinking problems, and Alzheimer's is just one of the many types.
Lewy body dementia is one of the most misdiagnosed dementias. Depending on which symptoms show first, doctors may suspect Parkinson's, Alzheimer's or a sleep disorder, and some medications can do more harm than good.
At 50 or 55, many people are still working, raising kids, maybe caring for their own parents. Then comes a dementia diagnosis, and the programs that could help start at 65.
The care, the costs, who can help, whether you can keep your job. So much depends on how much time your loved one has. And I've known people to live with dementia for 20 years.
Needing help setting up a new smartphone is normal aging. Needing help just to start the microwave you've used for years is not. The same line runs through memory, mood, time and problem solving.
If your loved one couldn't hear the words on a memory test, they can look like they have dementia without it. Who diagnoses dementia, what each doctor checks, and why hearing and vision come first.
The brain is closer to jello than you'd think. That's why head injuries matter, why fluid can build up, and why a blocked blood vessel can change how someone thinks.
Your loved one remembers something from decades ago but not this morning. Newer memories stay mostly in the temporal lobe, while older, emotional ones are spread throughout the brain.
