That’s really terrible news for the Irvin family.
I had my mother diagnosed at the beginning of the lockdowns. My dad had just broken his hip at their home and my mother couldn’t make any sense of the situation. That’s when I finally figured out she had some sort of cognitive issue and took her to a specialist to get diagnosed. I suspect she had dementia/Alzherimer’s for at least 5 years prior to that, as she began making outrageous claims about me to my dad around that time….and my dad believed them and would confront me from time to time about them. My mother wavered between normal, depressed, nasty and accusatory for most of my life, so I didn’t recognize her cognitive decline until I took her to get diagnosed and I felt guilty about that for a while after I took her to get diagnosed.
To all those on this board that have dealt with this soul sucking disease, I feel for you. The drugs to slow its progress have shown to have limited efficacy and only in patients who are in the early stages of dementia. Some of you may have read about the faked Beta Amyloid study that was uncovered recently…..such immoral, unethical and soul crushing acts by a group of researchers. I’ve read that as of right now, your best defense is to sleep well and most importantly exercise, although these are correlative measures. I have also read that gut health may provide a solution for some dementia patients. A doctor in California performed a fecal matter transplant on an elderly man with moderate dementia and he returned to a normal cognitive level for his age after a month. I don’t know if his cognitive level lasted over an extended period, but I have messaged that doctor and will try to find out.
