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my 77yo wife developed dementia after two major abdominal operations ( first one due to mis-diagnosis) within three weeks of each other - assumed to have been caused by the very powerful anesthetics.
we had a notification (july 2023) from our local mental health people that they would visit to assess her in 6months time (jan 2024). they never came. i contacted them (april 2024) and they said our case had been closed?
my wife is bedbound 24/7 with dementia, ileostomy and a club foot (the deformation beginning when she was discharged from hospital july 2023).
i am her carer and do not know whether a formal medical diagnosis is important or not.

I knew something was wrong with my wife. She was getting lost in our own home. Things like asking where the bathroom was, when we have live here for 14 years. On more than one occasion we looked for help from our doctor. All the doctor would do was to carry out a simple memory test. Giving a name and address for my wife to memorise. Which she could manger to do. It took pushing by me to eventually get an appointment with the memory clinic. This was with a very unhelpful woman who eventually agreed to a brain scan. This scan confirmed vascular dementia

My wife was diagnosed with vascular dementia after a couple of years where her behaviour had become more agitated and her memory was deteriorating.
The medication does not really help and my wife is now refusing to take it. When other people come to see us she can mask her condition really well, which makes it look like she is coping with everyday tasks. It’s been difficult for me seeing her change from the person I married to just a shell of a human being, with no interest in life. I am up at night but get little rest during the day.

My dad had become forgetful in terms of his short term memory. Mum accompanies him to appointments because his processing of information is slower and he can't always recall information he needs to provide. If anxious about forgetting upcoming appointments, he becomes fixated and can ask us 5 times in 30minutes. This happens throughout the day. It is exhausting for us and worrying to him as he is unaware of the repetition. I want decision makers to know that adverts and information all stress the importance of early diagnosis yet for the first few years, practitioners repeated oral question tests and said there is improvement and mri's have shown no damage to indicate dementia. My concern is by the time scans do show it, it is probably too late for treatment to be effective. He has worsened in other ways which, thankfully, the memory clinic nurse has documentated from mum's accounts. At times mum has found it very hard and I have had to find my own ways to support them both. We are told medication won't help. If it wasn't family, there would be no support only 6mth reviews to inform us of his progress which we are aware of anyway as we see him daily. Before diagnosis dad thought he was going mad and worried a lot because he hadn't been given a diagnosis therefore couldn't understand what was happening to him. Early diagnosis could have reduced this. For those carers who require DLA or PIP, the paperwork needs to be greatly reduced in its length and complexity as several older people I know of have abandoned it due difficulty completing it. Help that is easily and quickly accessed will be a massive help and will not cause adfitional stress which those affected do not need.

I am a 77 yrs old married man with a digagnosis of frontal lobe alzheimer's which I inherited from my late mother who had parkinson's ( parkinson's is caused by a lack of dopamine in the brain) I am on donepezil Hydtochloride 1 M0 mg in the the morning and Memantine Hydtochloride 20 mg at night I still retain a lot of my long term memory I under stand that cases of frontal lobe alzheimer's that the short term memory is the first to go ?

My wife of 50 year's who has had a heart op and cancer, had a very hard upbringing, and has just been diagnosed with Alzheimer's she has been very brave and we have had some wonderful help from a Memory Clinic . l am just coming to realise what the future has in store for us both. I just hope l will get help when I need it from the Council and the Government.

Took my partner for diagnosis and the doctor confirmed she has Alzheimer's. This was 10 years ago. She is now in a care home which I am happy with. But, she has never had a scan and therefore struggled to accept the diagnosis - and so did I and the family.

Nurse asked about memory at annual check up and did basic paper test. Said result was borderline. Referred to clinic a few months later. Continued during Covid. Saw consultant and had CT scan same day. Then saw neuropsychologist a few months later who gave diagnosis. Took 3 months for MDT to agree medication!