My MIL is very good at covering herself. Even now, I can tell sometimes she doesn’t know who I am, but will just pretend because everyone else seems to know. If you have a long enough conversation you’ll catch some bizarre answers to things, but even still. She is REALLY bad at this point. Sometimes doesn’t even recognize her H of 60 years.
But the first clues were when she’d forget to pick up my kids from middle school. Hers has been a long slow decline.
It’s so interesting to hear others experiences. My grandmother stopped paying bills and that was unusual for her. I guess there is no way to diagnose or treat anything eatly
I learned not to ask any of the assisted living residents “how was lunch?”. Even on the way back to their rooms from the dining room most could not answer.
One time I asked my mother what she had and she had no idea, just a few minutes later. With fewer teeth. she was still chewing it! 
But she could talk at length about the boyfriend she snuck out the window to see when she was 15!
In a pile of papers on an old organ in my parents’ house, my sister and I found uncashed checks for about $10,000. They were for rental properties. They were almost a year old. Fortunately the bank accepted them. We decided that was our Christmas gift to our parents that year.
Adding: When it became obvious Mom couldn’t take care of the finances, Dad hired a bookkeeper. That upset Mom and she would go into the Quick Books file to “fix” things. I copied and renamed the file so Mom could use the original while the bookkeeper could do the real work in the new file.
My MIL supposedly doesn’t have dementia - doctors say she’s normal for 95 - but I see signs of dementia. One of the first for her, as others have noted, was forgetting to pay bills. When she asked SIL to take over her finances, I knew she was having memory issues (and to be snarky but truthful, she seems to have forgotten that SIL is really bad with money - H was supposed to be the one who would do that, but MIL changed her mind). She did the crossword puzzle in the local paper every day until about a year or so ago. She used to watch tv all the time, and she no longer does. She stopped reading. There’s no question that she’s done with life - she often says that she’s ready to join her H, who died two years ago, if only he would come to get her. But it seems like it’s more than just giving up on life. She does know who she is, who we are, where she is … but not all types of dementia affect those things. In the end, though, it doesn’t really matter, because it won’t change what is.
I know somebody who has a relative who was just diagnosed with early onset dementia. It started during the pandemic, and since she was mostly staying home alone, nobody noticed her cognitive decline. The first sign was that she was fired from two jobs in a row.
Come to think of it, my friend with early onset Alzheimer’s first showed signs at her job. She just couldn’t complete her tasks. It bothered her but none of us understood the implications. 
My aunt had early onset Alzheimer’s and one of the first signs was the need to have post it notes everywhere to remind her of dates, appointments, etc. Her doctor once said when you can’t remember where you put your keys, that’s just age – but when you can’t remember what keys are for, that’s early onset. She couldn’t retain dates or time, and that progressed to locations and people.
My dad increasingly gets ideas in his head that are not rooted in reality – the furnace is broken, for example. And he will keep fussing about it regardless of evidence to the contrary. He’s on his third 02 machine for the same reason. He also has noticeable lapses of understanding and retaining, but it’s hard to tell what’s up with that.
My mom can’t remember anything. And she listens to answering machine messages, and then carefully writes down an incorrect number. I have seen her do this several times. As a non-medical aging issue, their doctors are uninterested and there is no diagnosis of dementia for either of them. The gray area between fine and whoa, is large and uncharted
Absolutely. And then add in someone who can showtime, and what someone who sees the person a lot can see, others can’t.
My mother’s reasoning skills started slipping. She wasn’t connecting the dots. But others couldn’t really see it. She also had anxiety. Her doctor didn’t care. She saw that I brought her to appointments, so I think she just assumed I lived with my mother and would take care of her.
My father (91) who was very sick in the hospital for over a month, is now in a rehab facility. He called yesterday to tell me he missed Christmas and New Years. I told him he was in the hospital and very sick during that time. He seemed genuinely surprised by this, wanted to know what was wrong with him, etc. He was so out of it when he was in the hospital, that I think he has no recollection of that time. Strange how the brain works, especially in older people.
This was really hard with my MIL and her sister. What seemed to us at the time to be just bad expressions of long-standing personality traits now look, in retrospect, like early signs of loss of top-level cognition. In one case, being careless with money management; in another case, anxiety that was out of proportion to the stressors. I remember thinking, in connection with my MIL’s inability to handle her radiation treatment, “I hope I’m braver than that when I’m 75.” Now I speculate that early dementia was cutting into her ability to access her self-control, her wisdom, etc.
So my mom is doing great at her rehabilitation center. Really good. We have a meeting on Tuesday and should get confirmation on when she will be released.
They say she should be back to where she was before the fall. And so her recovery is quite a miracle. We are hoping that she will be able to go back to her house. It’s a one story house and we are going to try and get things set so that she can independently live.
I don’t know if I’m living in some fantasy world. Can she really be able to go home? And live by herself?
And our other options? We thought she could go home, get on the list for independent living in her community and move there when a spot opens up.
Someone came to visit mom and now she’s in a tizzy. I thought mom had gone to the independent living facility and got the information. She just got a flyer. She doesn’t know if there’s a buy in (she couldn’t afford a buy in, she will have to use the proceeds of her house for the monthly costs). Is there much of a waiting list? Her friend heard of a friend who’s been on the list for a long time. I guess we don’t even know the exact monthly costs.
I said I would call tomorrow and mom says that she called and my sister called and no one ever calls back. They are probably full and aren’t even accepting any applications.
Add to this my sibling came to visit for less than 24 hours and wanted mom to move where she is. Went on a vacation and no one has heard from her for 3 weeks. Is she still on vacation? No one knows. Has she investigated how much it would cost for mom to be in independent living near her? Seems unlikely.
I haven’t investigated independent living near me because mom wants to stay where she is. But only in the one place in her neighborhood. If she would have to move out of her neighborhood, she might as well live near her kids.
I’m a bit over my skis here. I’ve been dealing with my husband’s health issues. He just had a complication and got out of another hospital stay. I think I might have to go to my mom’s in a week or 2 and figure out her situation. It’s a bit much.
I’m typing this while sitting next to my mom’s hospital bed. She’ll go to rehab tomorrow, the nurse said. I can’t believe her progress. When I left Tuesday she couldn’t remember the president’s name. Tonight, the nurse mentioned a small town about five hours away and she correctly remembered her sister lives there.
My sibs have been her the past several days, and it sounds like they got the worst of it. Or maybe I just have a high tolerance for this stuff. I don’t know. But for the first time in days I feel optimistic.
@deb922 I am sorry you are dealing with so much. The standard advice I have been giving (having been down this road) is you have to assume her condition will get worse, not better. So make your decisions with that in mind. Perhaps she could go back to her home now, but what if she has another health issue 6-12 months down the road. No one wants to move to assisted living etc in a crisis situation.
If you know she has a medical condition that can get worse, or you know she has the beginnings of dementia or something else (sorry I can’t remember you situation details) then try to think long term and plan for that.
I ended up moving my parents about every 18 months due to new health issues and in hindsight, I might have planned things differently if wasn’t just assuming they’d go back to status quo.
Agree about not waiting until it’s a crisis, if possible (I know it’s not always possible). If you have time to be able to research options, it really helps. In laws planned ahead & had a wonderful experience with assisted living. A year after FIL passed, MIL decided she needed to be nearer to SIL … immediately. She ended up in a less than optimal situation because she refused to wait.
Thanks these are great tips.
Called the independent living place. I think the only way to get good answers is to take a tour. Which we can do when mom gets out of her rehabilitation center. Independent living does have some openings, I found that out. Maybe not her first choice.
This all came up very quickly. Mom was doing great until she fell at my daughters over the holidays. We were starting to look at options but thought we had time.
Moving back into her house is only a temporary solution while we find a permanent place for her to be. The issue is where would that be.
It’s so difficult when my sibling isn’t being supportive and mom is fighting with them. I’m trying to be Switzerland but that doesn’t help me much.
It depends who is actually around to see what is going on (and not just short periods of time/gloss over).
Someone there/dependable - be it you or one of your siblings might step up and take the lead, in gathering all relevant information, assessing what is best in short term and thinking about long term. How will finances hold out? Lots of decisions; can’t count on best scenario happening w/o planning and purpose.
You can tour the facility without your mom. It might be helpful for you to be able to ask questions without your mom there. That will give you some understanding of the place before you take your mom for a tour.
The independent living community is not near me. In fact, I have no independent living communities in my town. My sister does but my mom doesn’t want to move there. She doesn’t want to move where I am either but she is more amenable to where I am if she has to.