Hi, I'm JoJo6. You can leave the 6 off.lol

I'm here because my MIL has Alzheimer's Disease. She has progressed to the point of us having to place her in a Nursing home. I still do her laundry, just because thats about all I can do for her.

Mr. Jo is so devoted to his mom. I see big tears in his eyes when I ask how she is, I stop asking and wait for him to tell me. Sometimes never. Like the time she socked him and got hold of him and wouldn't turn loose because she wanted to go home with him. They had to about drag her back to the day room. Mr. Jo never did tell me this, his uncle told me.

Anyway MIL lived with us a long time, I got to the point where my health was shot, and she was worse every day.

Well, that is enough about me. Welcome to all that would like to come in.

Dr.John has much information on his site about Alzheimers. The link is under his name. He is a good man for making this forum. I just hope people will use it. It would have helped me 10 years ago. I'll leave a light on for you.

I care, JoJo

My father and several of my aunts have (had) alzheimer's. It really is shocking that so many of my elderly relatives have this. My Father passed away from other causes a year ago in August. He was sweet, although a bit adled, right up to the end.

Anyway, sorry to hear about your MIL. My own Mom is failing. Although she has really stablized and improved since we put her in a nursing home. She doesn't have Alz. though, although her memory was terribly affected by her heart issues.

I'm personally convinced this is a disease of the metabolism, a sort of glucose problem with the brain, a bit like diabetes. To that end I'm being careful of the sweets and starches in my own diet, since my destiny seems clear otherwise!

Hi Nancy. You know Alzheimer's and Dementia are much alike in the symtoms. Just the aging process will cause short term memory loss as well as other things.
My MIL was dx;ed with Alzheimer's Disease in her early 60's that scares me, I'll be 64 next week. Oh well, now I can blame everything on hubby.lol I'm older that he is , about 4 1/2 years.

It is a very sad way to end one's life. I mean as in dying with natural causes.

I'm under the weather, horrible chest thingy. Doesn't want to go away. Nancy, did you say you were the Moderator in the Alz. & Dem. room? Well it is nice to meet you nevertheless.

I'm hoping things will be helpful for those that want to take part in this forum. There are so very many stages it is not simple to say what stage a patient is in. I don't think that works very well anyway. MIL will be here for a week or a few, then she slides down, way down.

Well, I do hope we have a good forum here. I feel it's needed and it sure does help when the patient is hard to handle. Perhaps we can share bits and pieces of info. That can be very valuable.

Well, good luck to all and if you are an Alzheimer's patient, feel free to come too. After all, you know first hand how things feel. In the "old" forum we had several that were patients and they were very helpful.

Take care all and blessings to all. JoJo

My best friend since childhood just lost her mother to Alzheimer's Disease. She had been in a nursing home for over a year, and hadn't recognized family in about that long. Sounds as though she took a bad fall, injured her head, slipped into a coma, and died five days later. Apparently her last MRI had been very bad.

I'll soon be posting some information about the diagnostic differentials for dementia due to B12 deficiency and Alzheimer's. There is a lot of info out there. We used to have a thread about it on the PN forum. I mostly post on the Gluten Sensitivity/Celiac Disease forum.

Cara

Hi Cara,

One of the handouts that Peg brought home discusses food/supplements. B12 was not listed there. This handout is something that the doc wrote, so I'm not sure how much I can post out here. When I have a chance, maybe I can summarize some things from it. Omega 3 & 6's, Vit E & C were mentioned.

I just read through an eMedicine article on Alzheimer's, too, and saw no mention of B12. It is sad to think something so simple might be missed.

Cara

Hi Lara, good to be "talking again". I'm not sure I can answer your question but if I don't get the job done, I'm sure someone else will have an answer. Lets see if I got it right first.

I'm learning more and more every day about these things, it really gets depressing at times Alzheimer patients go from one end of the spectrum to the other. For instance, MIL was one of the sweetest, nicest people I have ever known.

Around the time we moved her her personality begun to change. She got very hard to handle. I think she knew she was not being nice, but as to how much I couldn't say. poor thing, it would have killed her had she known she beat me up. lol. She was so fragile, could hardly walk but it was like pulling the blinds, something just came over her face, I learned quickly to get out of reach. Sometimes I didn't make it. She was as strong as an ox.

I would say after a fashion she knew things wern't right but if we tried to work with her she got worse. Most of the time now she just stares blankly and ignores you. I don't feel bad at her, my heart hurts for her. She looks so puzzled and scared. I just want to take all the pain away.

I don't know about the other Lara and don't feel I answered the first one.

I do know her neuro would always tell hubby if a new something came out that could possible arrest the disease or help them not get it at all. He didn't know, but at least he gave husband a choice. At 1 point Vit. E was all the rage. We both worry or better word try to be aware of these things. there is so much we don't know. I read some interesting things over in Dr.Grohol's site this morn. very interesting.

Cara, what blood test do they do to check the low b12? I'm going for a "blood panel" tis next week and wondered what more they could do. My potassium was very low.

I'll shut up after this and read your post Cara, you mentioned falls your friends mom had.. MIL is in the 2nd NH. The first one, well, it was a gross mistake. They called hubby one night and told him MIL's room-mate pushed her down, but she only had a small knot on her head. Hubby told her to have her dressed, he would pick her up in 20 and take het to ER to check it out.

Well, her skull was fractured. The only time we went back there was to get her clothes! We had already been looking for one, not so fancy on the out side, but have a good nursing staff.

She has had several "falls", broke her shoulder in 3 places adn had to have surgery 2 times in less that 2 months. My opinion? there was no way she could have fallen and hurt her shoulder that way. somebody was jerking her arm!!
I understand now why they say the leading cause of death with AD patients were( p=monia SP) & falls. I believe that. My heart breaks for all the little patients. They can be so funny, they laugh, we laugh, they don't we don't. just have to follow along.thank you all for the information.

Jo

So sorry to hear about all those falls .

Tests are:

B12 level
methylmalonic acid
homocysteine

The lab lows for B12 are usually set around 150-200, depending upon the lab, but you want a B12 level in the upper range. People with levels as high as 400, and even higher in rare cases, can be B12 deficient. Upper range is usually set around 900-1100, depending upon lab.

An elevation in either of the second two suggest a B12 deficiency even if the B12 level is in normal range. And to complicate matters more, even those can be normal. Does anyone know of a perfect lab test for anything???


The circumstance of my friends mom's fall was vague. They said she probably fell because of the AD. I guess her whole face was purple/blue from the bleeding . I was on vacation the week it happened, and never even knew until after I got back. I missed the funeral which I felt very badly about. You always think you will be there to support your friends, but within seven days time someone can die and be buried.

My own mother had a fall in the hospital when she was supposed to be in restraints or under supervision. The nurses were actually being kind to her by letting her up and allowing her to sit out in a wheel chair at the nurses station. Well, she tried to get up when they weren't looking and fell and broke several ribs .

Does your low potassium really wipe you out? My MIL has to take it by prescription. She says she feels awful when she is low. My daughter had a couple of days a few years back where she couldn't seem to get out of bed. Very tired, lots of muscle complaints, and very weepy. I finally hauled her in and all they found was mildly below range potassium. They said it wouldn't account for her symptoms, but they gave her a potassium boost. Within two hours she was a new kid.

Cara