D E M E N T I A . . .

It's not really very humorous, dementia.

The easiest way to contract it is to live longer.
At age 85, one in three has symptoms. You can get it at an early age, from a bang on the head, etcetera. but, mostly it happens when you're older. There's a hundred different types of it, and not all medico's agree on its diagnosis and treatment.
One of my very elderly relatives MAY have it. The psychiatrist says 'No' (he reckons that she may have 'delirium', another illness altogether), but the chief medical doc says 'Yes'. She has just gone into hospital. She wants to go home every day we visit. The nurses want her to go into a 'secure' ward (she is hard work, with sometimes bizarre and un-ladylike behaviour) but the doctors cannot agree.

I've spent a few hours every day this week searching the 'Net, reading magazines and books and talking to friends, relatives and strangers who are acquainted with aspects of the disease. Golly, it is terrifying. That's mainly because the person you've known all your life is suddenly a new and unpredictable and sometimes scary and messy person, who really won't remember who you are, and worse, who they are.
A blog is not a good place to cover much about this illness. It is a good place for me to mention it, as it is too scary to keep cooped up inside you.
There's lots of advice and help on the 'Net, and from the medico's. I have found, in a very short time, that you need a whole team of carers to look after someone who is demented or has Alzheimner's.
This treatment can appear brutal (locking up 24/7 in a secure mental ward, forced administration of psychotropic drugs, tying to the bed).

The alternative appears to be much worse. If the dementia sufferer discharges themself, where can they go ? If they go home, they're found wandering around in the street without their proper coat in a rainstorm,. They don't buy food, they don't eat, they don't or can't call anyone, and worse . . .
And, who pays their bills ? We've found Power of Attorney costs £ 1,500 and takes six months to acquire (when the relative is not 'all there'). And, you feel terrible, commuting back and forth every weekend to see them in hospital, waiting for a diagnosis and an offer of a place in a suitable old peoples' home . . .
I don't see how anyone can plan in advance to deal with this sort of thing, although there are 'living wills' and such-like . . . including Dignitas, the Swiss group which will assist you to die, if you have arranged it yourself in advance. . . .
It doesn't apply here, and it may not be applicable to dementia sufferers generally, as all the people whom I can recall who've gone to Dignitas (and thereby made it into the UK news media) have been 'compos mentos' at the time of the assisted suicide . . . .

Good-bye social life and having fun . . . all of us looked ten years older by the end of this week . . . and, we don't think there will be any conclusion for Mom until at least a few weeks into the future. And maybe not even then . . . I'll keep you posted . . .