Best place to start will be with local services. These will include your
local Alzheimers society, get in contact with them whatever else you do,
plus your doctors for advice, plus local social services. They will help you
get started on the right things to do, which might include medication (is
she on any), seeing a doctor (has she been diagnosed), going to a daytime
centre as respite for you, and so forth.

Yes, of course it is common.   Alzheimers is a disease where the person's
memory, especially recent events, fails them.   She can probably remember
things from her youth very well, but cannot remember what she had for lunch,
or even if she had lunch!

As has been suggested, you need to get a proper diagnosis from a doctor.  It
will involve a couple of tests, such as a blood test and perhaps a cat scan,
as well as a test from a psychiatrist.   This is not to determine if she is
"crazy" but to determine exactly how much memory loss she has.   The reason
I mention this is because my mother in law panicked when we told her we were
taking her to a psychiatrist.   She kept telling us that she wasn't "crazy".

At any rate, once you have a real diagnosis in place, she will probably be
given some of the very excellent new medications, which will give her a
little better quality of life and help her memory a bit.    You are
fortunate in that there ARE some good ones out there!   They are not a cure,
but they will help.

Please be aware that if she is into the illness enough to be diagnosed with
it, she may not be able to remember to take her medications, or whether she
already took them or not.   You may need to supervise the medication
situation yourself for her.

Most of all you should not get angry with her.  She really cannot help
asking the same question over and over.  She honestly thinks she is asking
it for the very first time.   She cannot find things because she has an
organic illness that affects the memory in her very brain.   She is going to
require a lot of help.   Try and be as patient with her as you can, because
she is going to need to trust someone.

Make sure that if you do get a diagnosis it is EXTREMELY important to get
certain legal documentation in place NOW while your mother is able to reason
a bit.   You will need to see a lawyer who advertises that he specializes in
"elder law".

Good luck to you.   As some of us like to say around here...."welcome to the
club nobody wants to join"   Post your questions or concerns here, there are
a lot of knowledgeable people who post here, all of whom have had experience
with the illness in their families.

The kinds of memory and behavior problems your mother is
experiencing are extremely common.

My Mom used to hide things all the time.  We think she
hid them because she figured that if she put things in a
special place, where no one else could find it, no one would
move it and she'd be able to find it again.

Of course 5 seconds after she hid it it was gone and no one
could find it.  Dad had to wait at the mailbox every day
for the mailman because if Mom got to it first the mail would
disappear, including for example, their Social Security check.

Others have given you good advice.  One caveat however: the
drugs that are available for treating AD symptoms don't work
for everyone and can have side effects.  If they do work, it is
only for a limited time and to a limited extent.  Nevertheless,
they're probably worth trying.

Good luck.

    Alan

Steve, sounds like you need some help with understanding this disease.
You really do need to contact your local Alzheimer's Association and
find out what supports, services, agencies, institutions, resources
etc. might be available where you live. She's going to get worse, so if
you are tired now,.......you need to line up the help right now and
have a plan ready to go for when this gets to be too much for you to
deal with at home.

I hope you have had her assessed by a doctor and properly diagnosed,
and if possible, on some meds to help slow this down and/or reduce her
agitation.

Here below my signature are the most commonly used set of definitions
of the stages - I paste them here again for your reference, so you get
an idea of what is entirely normal and to be expected for the illness,
and so you get a preview of what is likely to come next.

Keep in mind, the disease is actually a continuem, so not everyone is
going to fit neatly into a stage at any one time (i.e. your loved one
may have characteristics that span several stages at once - i.e. a bit
of stage 4, a lot of stage 5 and a few in stage 6). Stages are just a
helpful way of "binning" symptoms to get a feel for where a person is
in the disease based on the preponderance of their issues, and for
anticipating what might come next.

The stages also don't cover every last bit of wierd hard to cope with
behaviour every person with AD may go through, but the description is
pretty good on a generic basis. Everyone has their own unique path
through this. However, it sounds to me like she is likely at least into
Stage 4.

Mary G.

Stages of Alzheimers

In 1982 Dr. Barry Reisberg published what was to become the best and
most widely accepted description of the stages of Alzheimer's disease.
Even today, 222 years later, when experts refers to a person being in
stage 5 or stage 6, they are referring to Dr. Reisberg's scale of
seven stages.

Adapted from Reisberg, B., Ferris, S.H., Leon, J.J. & Crook, T. The
global deterioration scale for the assessment of primary degenerative
dementia. American Journal of Psychiatry, 1982

Level 1

No cognitive decline - (or Normal Adult). No subjective complaints of
memory deficit. No memory deficit evident on clinical interviews.

Level 2
Very mild cognitive decline (forgetfulness or normal older adult).
Subjective complaints of memory deficit, most frequently in the
following area:
(a) forgetting where one has placed familiar objects;
(b) forgetting names on formerly knew well.
No objective evidence of  memory deficit on clinical interview. No
objective deficits in
employment or social situations. Appropriate concern regarding
symptoms.

Level 3
Mild cognitive decline (early confusional or Early AD). Earliest
clear-cut deficits. Manifestations in more than one of the following
areas:
(a) patient may have gotten lost when traveling to an unfamiliar
location;
(b) co-workers become aware of patient's relatively low performance;
(c) word and name finding deficit becomes evident to intimates;
(d) patient may read a passage of a book and retain relatively little
material;
(e) patient may demonstrate decreased facility in remembering names
upon introduction to new people;
(f) patient may have lost or misplaced an object of value;
(g) concentration deficit may be evident on clinical testing.

Objective evidence of memory deficit obtained only with an intensive
interview. Denial begins to become manifest in patient. Mild to
moderate anxiety accompanies symptoms.Deficits noticed in demanding
employment situations.

Level 4
Moderate cognitive decline (Late Confusional or Mild AD). Clear-cut
deficit on careful clinical interview. Deficit manifest in following
areas:
(a) decreased knowledge of current and recent events;
(b) may exhibit some deficit in memory of one's personal history;
(c) concentration deficit elicited on serial subtractions;
(d) decreased ability to travel, handle finances, etc.

Frequently no deficit in the following areas:
(a) orientation to time and person;
(b) recognition of familiar persons and faces;
(c) ability to travel to familiar locations.
Inability to perform complex tasks. Denial is dominant defense
mechanism. Flattening of
affect and withdrawl from challenging situations occur.

Level 5
Moderately severe cognitive decline (Early Dementia or moderate AD).
Patient can no longer survive without some assistance. Patient is
unable during interview to recall a major relevant aspect of their
current lives, e.g., an address or telephone number of many years, the
names of close family members (such as grandchildren), the name of the
high school or college from which they graduated. Frequently some
disorientation to time (date, day of week, season, etc.) or to place.
An educated person may have difficulty counting back from 40 by 4s or
from 20 by 2s. Persons at this stage retain knowledge of many major
facts regarding themselves and others. They invariably know
their own names and generally know their spouse's and children's
names. They require no assistance with toileting and eating, but may
have some difficulty choosing the proper clothing to wear.

Level 6
Severe cognitive decline (Middle Dementia or Moderately Severe AD).
May occasionally forget the name of the spouse upon whom they are
entirely dependent for survival. Will be largely unaware of all recent
events and experiences in their lives. Retain some knowledge of their
past lives but this is very sketchy. Generally unaware of their
surroundings, the year, the season, etc. May have difficulty counting
from 10, both backward and sometimes forward. Will require some
assistance with activities of daily living, e.g., may become
incontinent, will require travel assistance but occasionally will
display ability to familiar locations. Diurnal rhythm frequently
disturbed. Almost always recall
their own name. Frequently continue to be able to distinguish familiar
from unfamiliar persons in their environment. Personality and
emotional changes occur. These are quite variable and include
(a) delusional behavior, e.g., paatients may accuse their spouse of
being an impostor, may talk to imaginary figures in the environment,
or to their own reflection in the mirror;
(b) obsessive symptoms, e.g., person may continually repeat simple
cleaning activities;
(c) anxiety symptoms, agitation, and even previously nonexistent
violent behavior may occur;
(d) cognitive abulla, i.e., loss of willpower because an individual
cannot carry a thought long enough to determine a purposeful course of
action.

6a - Requires Assistance dressing
6b - Requires Assistance bathing properly
6c - Requires Assistance with mechanics of toileting
6d - Urinary incontinence
6e - Fecal incontinence

Level 7
Very severe cognitive decline (Late Dementia or Severe AD). All verbal
abilities are lost. Frequently there is no speech at all - only
grunting. Incontinent of urine, requires assistance toileting and
feeding. Lose basic psychomotor skills, e.g., ability to walk, sitting
and head control. The brain appears to no longer be able to tell the
body what to do.
Generalized and cortical neurologic signs and symptoms are frequently
present.

7a - Speech ability limited to about a half-dozen intelligible words
7b - Intelligible vocabulary limited to a single word
7c - Ambulatory ability lost
7d - Ability to sit up lost
7e - Ability to smile lost
7f - Ability to hold up head lost