At our wit’s end
My Mom was diagnosed in 2024 with early onset. Within the last 2 months, her cognitive score dropped from 20 to 10. Seemingly overnight, she stopped recognizing her husband of 50 years and no longer thinks she’s at home, the place she’s lived for 30 years, in her hometown.
She calls my Dad 15 times a day asking him to come pick her up. He’s tried ignoring her, lying to her, telling her he’s stuck out of town, when he’s actually just in the other room. She can’t settle and constantly gets up to go pack another bag to go “home.” She’s been on Leqembi for 18 months (first infusions, then moved to the at home shot a few months ago), and within the last 10 days she’s been prescribed Memantine and Mirtazepine. Dad stopped giving her the weekly Leqembi this week.
We had a minor breakthrough the other night where she was lucid for a little while and seemed to be speaking on the disease itself; that she’s frustrated and stuck and lost and there are two pictures in her mind that cannot connect. Then she woke up the next day and packed up all her shit again.
She’s still able to dress, shower, eat independently, do the dishes and laundry. My Dad thinks she needs to move to memory care immediately. Is that the point that we’re at? The rest of us are pulling for in home starting this week, but so far she has proved impossible to redirect.
If anyone has any tips or ideas or advice, we feel like we’ve tried everything at this point