Can dementia be sudden?

Yes, it can happen quickly, but there is a cause. It could be ischemia in a certain area of the brain. It may be an infection, such as a urinary tract infection. It could be a problem that caused a substance in the body to build up to harmful levels -- a condition known as metabolic dementia. Metabolic dementia can often be reversed if it hasn't gone too far, so it is good to have her checked out.

I took my mom who suffers from dementia to a Geriatric Psychitrist recently. I had time with him after mom was taken home - I was able to ask about what baffled me the most regarding dementia. He said that often what appears to be a sudden on-set is often a rapid series of small strokes. He also said there is often a slow, silent medical cause like Congestive Heart Failure that may be limiting blood to the brain - what appears as sudden is actually a reached limit from a slow build. Sometimes hindsight can allow you to see small changes in behavior or thoughts that may have been written off to a "normal" aging process that isn't normal at all. However, what he did say is common is for dementia to get significantly worse "all of a sudden" often triggered or the result of a specific occurance or incident, like a fall. The most common path for dementia - according to this guy - is that it will appear as if almost suddenly. Then a period of a new "normal" will occur followed by another sudden decline onto new normal and so on with the cycle continuing to repeat until the person passes away. In the cases of a person in generally good physical health he said from a proper first diagnosis to passing averages ten years. Again, he did say that this cycle can appear shorter as frequently the person is not properly diagnoised because of the common misconception that certain symptoms are "normal" aging related declines.

BTW, episodes due to infection are also usually easy to clear with the proper antibiotic. Those due to ischemia, e.g. stroke, may be a bit more stubborn but sometimes can get better.

Dementia builds up in the body for many years before it shows itself. The showing is typically gradual, but it can also appear suddenly. My husband had a sudden meltdown, and so did one other person in my local support group. All the others had a more gradual experience.

I am more inclined to think about a uti for this sudden odd behavior. Your mother is on the young side for either dementia or such extreme uti symptoms, but sometimes disease does not check a person's ID carefully.

Try not to let this stress you unduly. The important thing is that she is seeing a doctor soon. If this doctor recommends a specialist, follow up on that.

Do come back and let us know what you find out. We learn from each other.

Um, did they not do any kind of neuroimaging (MRI preferred, CT at a minimum) and consider her for a stroke protocol? Was a really good neuro exam done, not just chit chat and test a knee jerk and the hold-your-hands out in front of you thing? Unless the stress was something extreme, like enough to cause PTSD, writing this off as psychological does not seem wise. Hope this turns out to be something that can improve!!

Arretsax, thanks for the update, that changes my answer. For your Mom's sake I hope it isn't any more serious than a melt down from caring for her aging parents.

I am a firm believer that senior citizens should NOT be caring for older senior citizens on a full-time bases, especially one's parents as what happens is that the family dynamic goes back to the child vs parent relationship. There's a reason one very rarely sees a staff member at the hospital or rehab/long-term-care who is over the age of 60. We just can't do it any more.

My parents were also in their 90's and I developed serious health issues and even memory issues all due to the major stress, and here I wasn't even hands-on. But seven years of driving them to appointments, grocery shopping, helping here and there, and my parents refusing outside help and refusing to even think about moving to a retirement village, plus being employed took a toll on me.

Arretsax; I can't emphasize enough how much more information you'll get out of a good neuropsych exam. My mom, who has vascular dementia from a stroke, still regularly scores 15/15 on MSE's. However, three hours of pencil and paper testing, before her second stroke, showed marked impairments in logical thinking and reasoning skills that were indicators that she could no longer function on her own. Hope mom's been for more testing and that you've got reports!

Lesanne, that's a near-classic story and your interpretation is spot on. She probably had withdrawal from all the meds... my mom also made errors with one of her meds and it may have led to the fall that led to her losing her independence for good. But we will not ever know that for sure. I think most of the time when things go downhill fast it is due to a "vicious cycle" phenomenon of one kid or another.

Arretsax,
When was the last time you spent time with your mom before Tuesday? If you don't see her often it may be possible this has happened gradually and you just did not notice. Since it seems that it happened so quickly I like the others would think possibly a stroke. Is there history in your Mom's family? Or possibly a urinary tract or other infection? Doc may refer her to a specialist, a neurologist, most likely. She is quite young, but there is early onset that may be occurring.

Does mom have all of her legal documents in order? Powers of Attorney and such? If not it is important to get these done right away while she is competent and can express her wishes and understand what she is signing.

My MIL's dementia started extremely sudden just a few months after she turned 65. We normally saw her about once a week sometimes every other week. She was completely independant, normal and functional (or so we thought). She drove, she had an active social life, managed her own finances, lived alone like any other 65 year old woman.

One evening last May we got a call from her friend that she didn't show up for game night and hadn't answered her phone all day. We had the apartment super unlock her door and her friend found her passed out in bed. She had soiled the mattress several times and it took about 20 minutes to get her to sit up. By then we had arrived and rushed her to the ER. She had no memory of the last few days, she did not know her name or age but she did know my husband and me. She was so confused and kept asking where she was. They did every test available, CT, MRI, EEG and they all came back normal. She was in the hospital for 8 horrifying days! She went through hallucinations, crying, repeating random words all day long, staring into space for two days, at one point she started crying and yelling and speaking Spanish! She does not know any Spanish! On day 8 she had a massive seizure and was moved to the ICU. The next morning when she awoke she was completely normal again! They released her two days later.

We brought her to our home to recover. It wasn't until the morning after we got her home that we realized she was not fine! She couldn't seem to remember anything from the last year. Just like you said with your mom. She swore that the kids looked different (older) that her hair looked different than she remembered. She also was having trouble with short term memory. She could only remember new information for a few days then it was gone. We took her for a follow up with the neurologist about 20 days later and they did a MME exam on her. She passed with flying colors. She seemed perfectly normal to everyone else but we noticed little things over the next few weeks that no one would know unless they talked to her everyday. She had no concept of time. She would say something happened yesterday when it was really a month ago. She was going long periods without showering, not paying bills on time, spending money she didn't have. She just kept getting worse.

We just kept taking her back to the Neuro until they sent her for a Neuro Phych test., it was two, 2 hour test on two different days where they compared her answers. It has been 8 months now and we finally got a diagnosis of vascular dementia. The doctor said it was probably "brewing" for a long time and something triggered it. We discovered a few months into all this that she had been going to two different doctors, and four pharmacies! She was taking three to four times the normal dose of about 9 different medications and on top of it all, she is type 2 diabetic and apparently had forgotten how to calculate her insulin dosages. In the months leading up to her collapse she had used 4 times her normal amount of insulin. She was also on super high doses of Xanax, Vicodin and two different muscle relaxers.

As we dug deeper into her life and her finances we found that she had spent over $4,000 on QVC and HSN over the last twelve months. Her friends also told us about things where she seemed to get lost and confused and had even fallen a few times and made them swear not to tell her family!

We saw her almost every week and never had a clue! She had become a master at hiding her memory problems and confusion. Now her short term memory last only 30 minutes or so, then she will ask the same question again or tell the same story again. She can't remember that she is ill. So she is angry and confused a lot about why she has a home health aide. She has worsened very rapidly.

I guess the point of this very very long post :) was to share our experience with you to show that It's very possible that your mom has been having issues for a long time and it has just reached a point where she can't hide it anymore. Keep digging, and push the doctors! They don't know her like you do or care like you do. You have to force them to find the answer.

I know this is extremely hard to deal with at her young age. I hope for you and your mom that it is something reversible but if not you have found a good place for support! I wish you the best!