#DEMENTIA

[arlecchinasmainblog]

HEY EPIC FANS!!!! ⬇️

(Angst under the cut)

So I was rewatching some clips from Bridgerton (specifically Queen Charlotte) and it made me think about Odysseus and Penelope Growing old. Odysseus’ mind escaping him in his old age. At first it’s just a few moments Penelope notices he’s not entirely there, but as he grows closer to the end, his moments of lucidity are few and far between. He has confabulations of his past, of men in his palace when there are none. Penelope and Telemachus try their best to help him, but rumors quickly spread of the mad king.

One particular instance that seals this suspicion is when Ody mistakes Telemachus for one of Penelope’s old suitors and absolutely flys off the handles. Luckily Telemachus is a strong enough man he can hold his own against his aging father, but it shakes him up. It’s the first time his own father didn’t recognize him.

Though, as his condition progresses, his wife and son learn better how to adjust. For example Pen will sometimes hand Odysseus a baby doll (a trick used on irl dementia patients btw) and tell him to take care of Telemachus for a while, this helps calm the man down temporarily.

[caintooth]

seeing people my age talk about how scared they are of memory loss, which they only associate with old age, is so surreal to see as a 24 year old who has actively experienced memory loss for a long time now

there are causes for memory loss besides dementia and alzheimer’s, i hope y’all know that. dissociative disorders, trauma, brain injuries, thyroid problems, even just stress and lack of sleep can fuck up your ability to store, process, and access memory. and that’s just a few of the many causes i can think of off the top of my head right now.

please stop treating disabled people like some scary “other” that you might become only in the distant, decades-away future. we are your age, too. you may become one of us sooner than you know. stop acting like memory loss marks the end of a life, when so many of us have so much living left to do!

[goryhorroor]

“1950s horror movies contrast radically with their 1940s predecessors. understandably – they were reflecting a whole new world. audiences wanted stories that connected directly to their lives, to the ever-expanding technology in their homes and workplaces. they also wanted horror movies that played to their fears – stoked by politicians – of the shadows that lay beyond their immediate, personal experience of the shiny american dream (applies to some of these movies).”

[politijohn]

Source

[53v3nfrn5]

National Geographic: ‘Living with Dementia’ (2024) photography: Isadora Kosofsky

[trippingthemoonlightfantastic]

My mom is still at the hospital. Her doctor is the chief of medicine. I was there for hours this morning. Came home after she had lunch. She was nodding off. Now I'm back I've spent over $100 in Ubers in the last 18 hours. Please help me. I need enough to cover expenses.

[moonbean88]

[godisarepublican]

[mindblowingscience]

The eyes can reveal a lot about the health of our brain. Indeed, problems with the eyes can be one of the earliest signs of cognitive decline. Our latest study shows that a loss of visual sensitivity can predict dementia 12 years before it is diagnosed. Our research was based on 8,623 healthy people in Norfolk, England, who were followed up for many years. By the end of the study, 537 participants had developed dementia, so we could see what factors might have preceded this diagnosis.

Continue Reading.

[arlecchinasmainblog]

More Epic Angst

It’s the middle of the night and shouting can be heard from the king’s chambers.

“Get your wretched hands off of me! I am done enacting your vile fantasies!”

It’s happening again.

“Odysseus, my king, my love, it is I, Penelope.”

But he couldn’t recognize that. Not now anyway.

“You are not! You are not! Cease veiling yourself as my wife you evil witch!”

Despite his wife’s gentle words, he couldn’t see her as he rocked in the fetal position; squinting his eyes shut as if he were a child hiding from an imaginary monster.

“Why must you take joy in tormenting me! I just want to go home! I just want to be home!”

The poor man cried in vain. And all his wife could do was weep. For she could not help her husband escape the prison of his confabulated captor. She could not free him from the prison of his own mind.

[longreads]

The Curl of Time

Today at Longreads, Sarah Stankorb confronts a lifetime of literally outrunning her angry, alcoholic father as she attempts to find care for him and her mother, both of whom are struggling with dementia. 

Each evening until I moved off for college, my father drunkenly slurred and screamed, chasing me around the house until I caged myself in my room and he pounded outside. I’d stayed there safe, until his attention refocused on my mother, then I’d run out and draw his anger toward me again. I was faster, could outrun him.

Read the full essay. 

[taramysweetlove]

[macgyvermedical]

Anosognosia

I want to introduce you all to the concept of anosognosia, and what my experience of it has been.

So first of all, what is anosognosia? It's a symptom where you can't identify (or have trouble identifying) your own deficits related to a mental or physical illness.

A lot of times we take for granted that we have an accurate picture of what our bodies and brains can do, which is updated based on new information. But with anosognosia, the part of the brain that does the updating gets damaged, so we're stuck accessing an older version of this information.

It's really common in severe mental illnesses, but it's also seen in brain injuries, strokes, dementia, and even blindness. About 40% of people with Bipolar disorder and about 50% of people with Schizophrenia experience it.

It can be constant and complete, where you have no idea your brain isn't working right, and no matter how much you're told about your condition it doesn't make sense. It can be really difficult for people with this kind of anosognosia to remember to take medication or want to take medication at all- after all, why take medication if there's nothing wrong, especially if there's side effects to the medication. They usually have to rely on external cues or motivations, such as "when I take my medication consistently, I keep my job." They also have to have a lot of trust that the people helping them make decisions actually have their best interests at heart and aren't mistaken about their condition.

It can also be partial, where maybe you have an inkling that something isn't right, enough that you'll question things that seem off or trust when other people say you're acting weird. But it's not always that simple. Some people go back and forth- one day understanding that they have an illness, the next not. This can be frustrating for the person and for the people around them.

My experience is partial anosognosia. I can describe what I'm experiencing, I know it's abnormal, but there's so much doubt that I never feel like I really know for sure. What if everyone in my life is mistaken about what's wrong with me? What if my psychiatrist is just humoring me? What if my wife just wants to have someone to take care of so she's convinced me that I'm crazy? I don't know. Maybe I'm secretly lying about the whole thing?

Knowing that I have anosognosia has really helped, but again, it's just something I have to trust is correct and base the rest of my thoughts around.

[magicalgrimm]

His dumbass spilt the tea

[catholic-on-main]

Please pray for me and my parents. My dad's appointment with the neurologist didn't go well today, with me and my mom not getting any answers that we really needed regarding my dad' dementia and deterioration, and my dad will absolutely refuse any sort of second opinion.

My mom has been clinging on to the end of her rope for months now. The way my dad has been treating everyone around him has been absolutely horrible with his worsening memory, mood, and paranoia, and we have no idea of how to proceed.

[reasonsforhope]

"Caring for a pet helps stave off cognitive decline for people over 50 who live on their own, according to a new study of almost 8,000 participants.

Researchers found that pet ownership was associated with slower rates of decline in verbal memory and verbal fluency among the older adults who were living alone.

The study included 7,945 mostly-white British participants from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing with an average age of 66.

Followed over an eight year period, more than a third of the group (35.1 percent) owned pets; about 30% of the group lived alone.

Previous studies suggested that solitary living is a risk factor for developing dementia and cognitive decline, but among those folks, raising dogs or cats was related to reduced loneliness.

Some research has found that pet ownership is associated with better verbal memory and executive function, but others failed to find any evidence.

The new research published in JAMA Network aimed to further explore the association between aging by oneself—a trend which has been on the rise over the past few decades—and pet ownership. And the results were clear.

“Pet ownership offset the associations between living alone and declining rates in verbal memory and verbal fluency,” said study corresponding author Professor Ciyong Lu, of Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China.

It was “a significant modifier” in all 3 associations—composite verbal cognition, verbal memory, and verbal fluency.

“Pet ownership was associated with slower rates of decline among older adults living alone.”

But owning a cat or dog did not make any difference for older people who lived with other people.

“These findings suggest that pet ownership may be associated with slower cognitive decline among older adults living alone.”

Prof. Lu is now calling for clinical trials that could help inform public health measures to address dementia among the elderly."

-via Good News Network, November 30, 2023