[sunrise]

For some time now, my mom's cognitive functioning has been going downhill. She is 83 and lives at home with my dad. My mom is a very smart person and has always been very "sharp." Because of this, I think she was able to compensate for her mental decline for quite some time. But it's all catching up with her now. She is very forgetful and when I speak with her, the conversation is so disjointed. She jumps from one topic to another. I have to keep bringing her back to get her to conclude a topic. She describes her interactions with her doctors and I can't tell what is going on because her descriptions are so scattered. It takes many questions to get the full picture from her.

Her main complaint is memory. She often forgets where she was going in the house or why, what she was going to do, etc. There have been a couple of times she got in the car to go do an errand and she forgot how to start it. She had the key in her hand but didn't know what to do with it. After listening to my mom's troubles, her doctor referred her to a psychiatrist for evaluation. It took 4 months to get an appointment. After listening to my mom, the psychiatrist referred her to a neuropsychologist for testing. He told her let's figure out what part of your brain is affected. After another 4 month wait to see the neuropsychologist, she finally did and was put through a battery of tests. When I asked her the results, it was hard for her to respond. She said she had spoken to the psychologist but really couldn't remember what she had said and she was supposed to talk to her the following week by phone after she had a chance to look at the test results. The psychologist never called her back. My mom tried to contact her but no one seemed to know what practitioner my mom was talking about when she called the clinic. My mom had forgotten her name. There was no record of her, according to my mom. It was just too complicated a task for my mom to do on her own. She couldn't call the psychiatrist and get the name of the referral and then call back. Too many steps. I tried calling for her, but because of HIPAA, they would not give out this information to me. Arrrghh.

Finally my mom spoke with her PCP, who told her she had a report from the psychologist, who said there was nothing wrong with her, that she scored above average on all parts of the test. Both the PCP and the psychologist suggested that maybe my mom was having trouble because she was under a lot of stress. My dad's health is poor, and my mom is the main caregiver. I would be stressed out by this! My mom denied this to her PCP. But I know she is stressed about this and other things. I can tell that when I talk to her on the phone. She seems to get easily overwhelmed. My mom has no plans to seek further help. Her doctor didn't suggest anything she could do to alleviate stress as my mom basically denied she was stressed. Could stress cause her cognitive difficulties?

I don't know if it's related, but the clutter in my parents' house is getting out of control. The kitchen table is filled with stacks of mail, magazines, newspapers, receipts, all sorts of stuff. My mom is unable to clear it off. When my mom and dad eat at the table, they clear little spaces for their plates. If anyone suggests getting rid of some of the stuff on the table, my mom gets agitated.

Is there nothing that can help? Is it just getting old? This decline in mental functioning is "normal" for that age? It is so hard to listen to her being unable to finish her thoughts. She was such a sharp lady. I worry about my dad too, as my mom has always been the "healthy one" and he has depended on her.

[lenjan]

My mom is 79 and has a lot of the same issues, particularly with keeping conversations on track -- I have to steer her back quite a bit to what we had begun talking about or I'll never hear the whole story or get a final answer.

Forgetfulness gets worse with age too, which is why they'll tell you the same story 3 times in 20 minutes or struggle to find words ("oh, what's that thing called that...., you know what I mean").

Stress can cause all sorts of problems, but the clutter, etc sounds like depression. A lot of people your mom's age (and mine) refuse psych help because they think it's all a lot of "quackery" -- mine has been depressed since my dad died (nine years!) and quit after 2 sessions with a geriatric pdoc "because he made me do all the talking." Uh -- kind of the point. I think they were just raised that you sweep all that kind of thing under the rug, even though there is a lengthy history of mental illness in our family, beginning with her father that I'm aware of and possibly before.

Having said all that, my only suggestion is to contact your county's human services dept. and see about some elder care -- they're usually able to have someone come in to clean, prepare light meals, run errands, etc at no cost to the folks involved.

Good luck. You're a good kid.

[thunderbear]

I agree that it may be stress. I am only 27 and I get forgetful because of the stress I have sometimes. But also age plays a part in all this.