Early Onset and Fixating on things

[bammer]

Hello all. I used to frequent these boards for my seizure disorder and am hoping that you guys in here might be able to help me out. My father is 58 and has been diagnosed with Early Onset A. He is still working and is in the early stages of it.

Lately he seems to get fixated on something and can't let it go. This is new for him. The majority of the time it has to do with my youngest daughter. My youngest daughter is perfectly fine so there are no real concerns with her. He was very worried about her 2 missing front teeth for several weeks for example. She is 7. Missing front teeth is normal. He has a grandson and another grandaughter. The garnddaughter is mine too so I can't figure out why he has fixated on my 7 year old.


Is this common?

[Tootsie]

Yes. There has been some attempts to group the symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease into "stages." However, most of us have found that these "stages" are not consistent and you can have someone showing symptoms of a stage one AND a stage 3.

The only thing that you can do is constantly reassure your Dad that her teeth are taking a long time to come in, then change the subject. You will have to repeat this every time he asks or expresses concern. It is one of the things you will get used to. Every time he asks, it is a new question to him.

Please be sure that you have done all the planning necessary to assure that he is cared for as the condition progresses. Cheerio.

[GFPaperdoll]

Does your dad have any other health issues? He could be suffering from gluten ataxia. Which is a problem with gluten that affects the brain. It can give you lesions in the brain similar to MS but not MS, they can be picked up on an MRI. Of course this is the advanced stages. If I were you I would get him tested thru Enterolab.com because they also test for the gluten intolerance genes which are DQ1 and DQ3 and a couple of other ones. these are the genes that are mostly responsible for neurological issues. 58 is too young to be having any neurological problems...

It is a travesty that people are not being diagnosed with this & are suffering and dying needlessly - not to mention existing in mental institutions for years on meds...

All that is needed is to quit eating the gluten grains, wheat, rye, barley and oats. It will make a huge difference in your dad, I am willing to bet...

[Jo6]

I am so sorry your Dad isn't well. His age is rather young for Alz., but it isn't too young to have Alzheimers.

You asked if it was "normal" . I agree with tootsie. As she stated sometimes the "stages" seem to overlap or come back as if it had never been there.

It is all so confusing, but when I stopped running to look up stages every time something came up I found I was more relaxed in my handling MIL's issues. I have Never totally relaxed, it simply does not pay to:)

Tootsie had some good pointers you may want to explore. She is very helpful to this forum. She hasn't been well but hope she is getting over the flu.

Paperdoll, I am not up on all the test and such they have and can do. I do know 58 is not too young to have neurological issues. I would have been most happy had MIL's dementia was not what it was. Something we could fix.

The test probably could be done on request from caregiver. You would have to look that one up. It would be nice if we could fix all dementia problems.

take care, Jo