Decreased sense of smell may indicate early dementia

I think it is very sad that other people would take advantage of your mom. I live in a town of about 12,000 people. One of my boys is a police officer so I'm hoping that we can keep a close eye on my wife when shw starts to wander off. She is not to that point yet but she is starting to go through the sun downing behavior. She gets up at 1:30am and is up for the night. I don't know when to put locks or alarms on the doors.

Her tiny condo got filthy and she was not bathing. She got a meal from a restaurant down the street. We asked the owner how much she was spending a day on a meal and he said 10. $100 withdrawal every three days, you figure it out.We followed her one day and saw her on a neighborhood park bench with one of the young homeless guys (she was 86) who had his arm around her. My husband walked up to them to say hello and the guy asked who he was and when he found out he took his arm off her. He took his hobo backpack and got on his bike and left. I imagine that was when she handed over money. She told us a guy she knew was fixing her watch but we never saw it again or her ring.That’s how we figured out who was getting the money. Obviously you don’t have that problem. When we moved her in she started to get violent, refusing showers, breaking windows, etc from time to time. It was a nightmare. I was the only child. Eventually she got infections like UTIs, antibiotics, cdiff, antibiotics, enterococcus , antibiotics, pneumonia, sepsis then passed.

Hi, @greff - I do recognize the blank stare from my great aunt who lives in a nursing home and has dementia. She no longer recognizes any family members. She lives across the country from me, but my aunt sends photos. She always has a blank stare, I noticed.

That is very difficult, @penn1023, to go through seeing your mom not bathe anymore, give money away to strangers in a fashion that didn't seem right to the family, and not keep up her house anymore. My grandma started having dementia symptoms when she lived in a retirement community, and she started doing things like pouring fertilizer all over her carpet and streaking down the hall between units sans clothing. She had to be moved to a higher level of care at that point.

@greff - what do you think is prompting your wife's dietary preferences to get so reduced at home lately? Why do you think it's different there than at a restaurant?

I think that at home, she pursues foods that are easy to make and she doesn't have to cook. She can't stand the smell of food being baked or fried. She also compulsively eats food that she likes, until she eats herself out of liking it. Candy is a big thing for her.

My mother had dementia and died at 86 yo. I think it may have started during her late 70s. She was sending money to all sorts of charities and a place that sent her pictures of the president. She was feeding her beloved dog moldy food. She also bought furniture that she couldn't afford and would walk on the street (or entertain visitors) with just her underwear on. . Finally, her money was gone so these places started having her send money through money orders (a guy would come and get the money and then send the money orders-I think he was associated with one of the national delivery services). Finally, one of her kids was there when the guy came to pick up the money and he told us what was going on. We changed her phone number since that was how these people were getting in touch with her, We finally had to put her into a nursing home. She lived a couple of years there. I would stop after work to be sure she was eating since they didn't have enough workers there to feed everyone (and make sure everyone was eating). They would remove all the food after 1/2 hour even if someone was still eating. When I asked why they said it was the rules (something about the food could be dangerous after 1/2 hour). Another thing I noticed about my mother in the early stages was that when she was writing something she often crossed out something and wrote something that was similar but a little different.

I think it is very sad that other people would take advantage of your mom. I live in a town of about 12,000 people. One of my boys is a police officer so I'm hoping that we can keep a close eye on my wife when shw starts to wander off. She is not to that point yet but she is starting to go through the sun downing behavior. She gets up at 1:30am and is up for the night. I don't know when to put locks or alarms on the doors.

@greff Regarding locks or alarms, sooner is better. We had a family emergency when my son-in-law's Mom wandered away in the cold in a shirt, with no phone, purse or id. Fortunately the police found her at her former workplace before any real harm, but nobody in the family believed at that point that she would be lost in the neighborhood where she had lived for 30 years, and in daylight.
Right away his Dad got locks and alarms except to the backyard and deck, which had a fence with a locked gate. So she could go outside but not go far.

Horrible isn’t it? Always in hindsight do you figure out that it started many years before. You want them to have their own money (we did) but after years of giving hers away (And she was only on SS) and then her watch and rings was too much.
God bless them and may they Rest In Peace.