Memory Loss

My mom told me today that my dad is losing his memory in a rather severe way. He asked her today if I still lived in Colorado (I have been back in the Philly area for maybe two years now). My dad actually is the one who flew out to Colorado when I was so fucked up from shooting coke to help me get back to the east coast. We drove 32 hours straight from Colorado to here.

My parents live right down the street and I see them about once a week.

I am conflicted. I don't really like my dad too much. He never abused me or anything but I just think he's kind of an asshole. Now, I feel sorry for him and am thinking that maybe his actions in the past were the best he could do. I dunno, I gotta take a closer look at how this makes me feel and the part that I have played in his actions that I disapprove of.

More will be revealed, I suppose.

 

That's the fun of passing time: eventually we must confront our parents' mortality. Not fun, but it's unfortunately a part of life. Has he been officially tested for Alzheimer's? There are a slew of new treatments that can help with it.

And for you-- the best thing that you can do to keep the same from happening when you're the same age is to keep mentally active. There is a genetic component to Alzheimer's, as well as environmental triggers, but the number one thing that brings on symptoms is mental inactivity.

 

You can be there for him/them now.
I endured alot of physical and Emotional abuse from my mother from 8 up until my late teens. My father pretty much enabled my Mother.
I still harbour some resentment but I dont see the point in payback anymore, especially now, when they are getting old. I love them, so, even though Im far from perfect, I do my best to maintain a relationship of intimacy and caring. I want to protect them now more than anything, simply because they tried there best with what they knew at the time and the past cant be changed. They care about me and I try to value that because there was a time when I didnt/couldnt.

 

That's a tough one. Would you say that your parents are currently good or bad influences in your life? It sounds like, since you live near them and maintain contact, that they might not be so bad. For me unfortunately, both of my parents were toxic influences. They were unfit. My father was a chronically unemployed, well-fare scamming abusive asshole alcoholic. If he hadn't already died from an alcohol-related disease, he'd still be an abusive asshole -- one who hasn't bothered to die yet. And I would have cut off all contact with him years ago. My mother wasn't very nice to me either. I haven't seen or spoken, my own decision, to her in years.

 

Dave - He hasn't been tested. My mom was saying that they can't diagnose Alzheimers until postmortem by looking at a piece of the brain (it sounds like she is misinformed)

I take this stuff as a sign of sorts. I have been lazy lately with stimulating my brain and I feel it (I can't even really blog well anymore). I think I'm gonna hop onto learning Spanish to keep my brain moving. Thanks!

Asc - Yeah, I guess this is the time for me to step up. I do the 12 Step thing so perhaps this is an opportunity for amends. I'm not on that Step yet but if I don't take some action now, it will be too late

Socko - my dad tends to trigger my anger and resentments but my mom is a STRONG caring and smart woman. The fucked up thing though is that I don't think I love them. No real reason not to (except for my dad) but I feel like most people who weren't abused tend to love their parents

I'm sorry to hear about your parents, man. That sounds horrible

 

They can't perfectly diagnose it, but there are a number of behavioural clues that are pretty indicative, and the meds used to treat Alz are similar if not identical to ones used to treat other demeniae. Behavioural and mental/psychological testing still definitely have merit from a treatment perspective.

Learning a language is a great way to stimulate the mind! Great idea. Learning an instrument is good too, as is learning to perform tasks with your non-dominant hand, word or number puzzles, and just reading.

 

One theory behind alzheimers is that the cholinergic neurotransmitter system is deficient. In fact, researchers have done age-matched postmortem studies on the brains of alz patients and found that some subtypes of acetylcholine receptors are underexpressed. Currently, they have some degree of success with treatment with a group of drugs desgined to enhance the cholinergic neurotransmitter system (eg cholinesterase inhibitors (elevate the level of ACh in the brain) like physostygmine, and I read somewhere that giving the patients low levels of cholinergic agonsits has helped too). Sadly, overall, these drugs only slow the progress but do not cure the disease.

Dave has some good suggestions. Also, I'll mention this because I like video games -- there are some video games that are thought to stimulate growth of certain areas of the brain as well. Check out the nintendo wii. Actually, anything that teaches you to work on your hand eye coordination or 3-D navigation skills (like first person shooters) is good.

 

thanks for the info, guys. I'm going to talk to my mom tomorrow.

my dad is REAL stubborn but this is something he shouldn't fuck around with

 

First, I'm sorry to hear about your Dad.
Whether you have a good relationship, love him, or not, he is your father- He created you, and the feelings that come with watching someone who had such a role in your life deteriorating is rough.
Spending time with him, while hard on you, may be good for him.
Puzzle games are supposed to be really good for people suffering from memory loss and for us now to prevent it.
So you might add some puzzle type games to your language idea.
I'm here if you ever wanna talk of course.
Keep your head up.