ADD & Demencia?

[Anonymous]

Hi…Great place here! My son was diagnosed with ADHA several years ago… And after several years of me saying that there is “Nothing wrong with my boy!… He’s just like me!” Well, anyway….. Here I am. So now I’m starting my journey of discovery about adult ADD…. I came to realize that My mom… You know her…. (WHERE’s MY CAR KEY’s!!??) Yea, that mom! Anyway….As she got older, it went from car keys, glasses, purses, wallets, can openers, money, children…. To, Now, She can’t remember what town we live in, or how to drive, or use a computer… She was dianosed with early onset of demencia, and is now in assisted living. So…. My question is……Is there a corrilation between ADD/ADHD & Demencia? Thanks, Brad

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[memzak]

Dear me I hope not!

I’m up to losing canes and money. My Grandmother and Aunt both had non-alzheimers dementia but they were in their 70’s and 80’s. I’m 59. I do know that ADD gets worse for women after menopause. I have always lost things to the point where I got absolutely paranoid about making sure I had everything when I left where ever I was. I seem to be even more distractable then before which is why I lost 2 canes in one week and my car key when my car got towed.

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[Anonymous]

I have only recently decided that I most probably have some form of ADD. It seems to me that it has gotten even worse since I retired about ten years ago. Truth be told, I’ve had some really trying times since then including the death of one of our sons, another son who began using heroin (I think he is ADD, too, as he’s a lot like me and vice versa), and most recently my husband being very ill and having open heart surgery. I don’t know whether I’m worse because of the stress, or because I have more free time now to indulge my “collecting” habit and fewer things I am compelled to do. But either way, the house is beginning to look like an example off “Hoarders” and my self-worth is at an all-time low. One of my sons is totally disgusted with the state of the house and has not shirked from telling me so in no uncertain terms. I could understand how he felt as I am not proud of the clutter and mess.

I’m wondering if, after all this stress, and at my age (68), I just have less energy available to compensate as much as I did in the past. I think if I could just get my housekeeping and organization under control, I would be OK with not being officially diagnosed or medicated. I have been treated for both OCD and for depression–now I wonder if both might just fall under the ADD heading. Any help would be appreciated. And Memzak, I lose everything too and spend a lot of time trying to locate lost items. It’s frustrating, to say the least.

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[Anonymous]

I have thought about the above for the last couple of weeks and believe that the reason that I was able to function better in former phases of my life is that I had a shedule imposed on me from the outside; for instance, my children’s school schedules, and later my schedule as a teacher. Now, without such external forces, my ADD is more visible.

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[wolfshades]

I’ll bet you almost every adult person with ADHD has wondered about these same questions. In fact, long before someone suggested I might have ADHD (after which I did some research and then finally went for all of the testing and was finally diagnosed) I was sure I had early onset alzheimer’s. I had always forgotten stuff before, but just didn’t notice it until I got divorced from my wife and was living alone.

ADHD often manifests in the forgetting of things. Not because they’re not available to your brain – they clearly are, because quite often you’ll sit there and just *know* that you *know* the answer – you just can’t recall it easily. It comes from an overload of stimulants. Stimulants like – the next thought you have, which is far more interesting and bright and bubbly than the one you’re thinking now. It’s why we’re so terrible at remembering people’s names – five seconds after we’ve been introduced. It’s the reason I’ll go nuts trying to find my keys, sometimes for ten minutes, before I realize I’ve had them in my hand the whole time.

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