I know how difficult it is to get our parents to go to get treated for their health problems. I think that is mostly because they are afraid of what they might find out, or what I think is more the truth is that they honestly don't think that there is anything wrong with themselves.

I know I still can't forgive my Mother for being so stupid not to have taken care of her cancer when it was small & she waited until the tumor was the size of my fist, saying that it didn't bother her until then.....yea, a tumor the size of my fist between her legs had to have been hard to ignore except she didn't think it was anything except for a cyst...& the cancer was at stage IV by the time she did anything about it. Her choice to ignore it had it's consequence....she died from it & put me through a horrible trauma because of her selfishness.

It is almost impossible to get them to go to a doctor for even a diagnoses. We tricked my Grandmother into going to the Dr because her hip replacement needed replaced again & we talked her into going in & having that looked at & when she did, I insisted that she be evaluated for Alzheimers. My Mother & my Gramps didn't have enough determination to force it to happen.....feeling guilty.....but I had no guilty feeling because I felt that I was protecting my Gramps & that was more important than anything.

I was looking through an Alzheimers book that I have & they always seem to start off with the patient already being Dx'ed without telling you how to get them to that point. I know that my pdoc specializes in Alzheimers & had done many clinical trials on it. If you have a pdoc, they might be able to tell you if there is a possible way to have a professional from one of the social workers departments come out to his house while you are there & evaluate him. If your pdoc doesn't have that information, I know that California has an Alzheimers Disease Center at UCLA & they may be able to help you set up a way of getting him diagnosed. There is also a county area agency on aging, a senior services, or a department of public social services. I am sure that there should be some group that can help you do an intervention to get him diagnosed for alzheimers. If they find out that it isn't alzheimers, there are many other things that it can be as our parents get older.

From my experience with my Mother, I know I could have used so much help or someone to guide me along the right path so my Mother couldn't have done what she did & cause the trauma to happen. I can look back & see that I shouldn't have let her control the situation after I saw that her cognative abilities were no longer anything except for emotional.

There is going to always be the conflict of whether or not or how much they are capable of controling their own lives after a certain point. I am an example of what happens without good outside help & guidance.

The situation you are in is really tough & hopefully they can rule out it being alzheimers, but if it is, the sooner care is started, the slower it may progress & that is what the newer treatments are able to do.

I know how important it is to have support whild dealing with these types of issues with our parents because we end up changing roles. I learned quite a bit as my grandmother died of alzheimers but I wish I had learned enough to not let my Mother get away with what she did as she died from cancer last year. Keeping your strength & not getting exhausted physically or emotionally is important. I wasn't successful & ended up in the medical hospital for 2 months because of what the stress did to me.

I am sure by now there are many books on alzheimers available. I only have one called "Alzheimer's Disease A Guide for Families" by Lenore S. Powell, Ed.D., & Katie Courtice. This bood also talks about other diseases that look like alzheimers but also goes through a lot of the tests that are being done to help Dx it now. The only thing I don't like about these books is that they assume that you have already been able to get your family member in & is already Dx'ed.....they don't give you any idea on how to trick them into going in for the Dx. That is where it seems like there has to be some senior organization that can help the family get the person diagnosed since their whole purpose is the treatment & care of the elderly.

If you feel the need for any support, you can always PM me or email if you want to.

I hope it turns out to not be Alzheimers & is something that can be treated with nutrition, or vitimines, or even Anti-depressants, but your Father is better off knowing either way at this point.

Hugz,
Debbie