One of the many issues often facing families’ today centers around having to care for an elderly family member who is suffering from memory loss. Adult children are fraught with very hard decisions to make. Elderly parents may become so debilitated they no longer can run a household. They may have to move in with their adult children, or move to a nursing home or other facilities depending upon the gravity of their situation. Sometimes neighbors become concerned with the activities of people suffering from memory loss particularly seniors who are doing weird things such as roaming around the streets in a daze because they cannot remember where their home is. Neighbors can be woken in the middle of the night from the sound of a fire truck because the elderly individual or couple forgot to turn the stove off thus causing a kitchen fire. Or, they may have fallen asleep while smoking a cigarette. Though neighbors may be concerned about the welfare of these seniors who are losing memory other than a call to the local social services, they often are paralyzed to act on behalf of the seniors because they are not related biologically as determined by a familial DNA test. When there are family members still alive and available these family members must take control of the situation at hand.
However, how does a family member tell if memory loss becomes that debilitating that intervention is necessary? Of course the above mentioned scenarios where fire trucks are called or the elderly parents are wandering around on the streets not knowing where they live are dramatic signs, yet not all signs are that obvious. Barring strokes, other diseases, accidents, etc, the loss of memory advances slowly with age. Once, the guardians of the elderly realize this, they often want to know what is normal memory loss and what is abnormal memory loss, which is indicative of a disease such as the onset of Alzheimer’s. Of course it will take a visit to the doctor to decide what is normal and what is abnormal. The doctor will determine the cause and the severity of the condition through different diagnostic tools such as MRI and DNA testing for urine and blood samples.
However the guardians or adult children still do have to determine when it is time to take their aging parent for that first check up. Usually an indication would be to consider what is normal for everyone. For example, it is normal to forget a brand new telephone number, but is not normal to forget a phone number you have been dialing everyday for over 30 years. It is normal to occasionally misplace an item but it is not normal to misplace everything all the time. It is not normal to forget you just had your dinner 5 minutes ago nor is it normal not to recognize your spouse or children. Forgetting to turn off the stove is a serious concern, just as leaving the home forgetting to change from your pajamas to street clothes. These strange behaviors are indicative of a memory deficit. Once again, should these abnormal types of memory loss surface, make sure you bring your loved one in for the various tests such as CAT Scan, MRI, DNA test, verbal memory tests and more.
