My father started losing his mind last fall, but no one noticed. It didn’t begin to be apparent until late spring, after he had a pacemaker put in to monitor his newly diagnosed atrial fibrillation — medication wasn’t doing the trick. His doctor thought his short-term memory loss was perhaps due to the medication following insertion of the pacemaker; I thought it was the surgery itself, since I’d heard of the elderly father of a colleague who’s also suffered some dementia after insertion of a pacemaker. But after a visit to my father in the summer to start the process of taking over his finances, and going over the mail that had piled up on his desk and examining his checkbook, it became clear to me that the loss of his “executive function” began last fall — when he’d stopped balancing his checkbook. The piles of mail on his desk included many bills, some opened, some left unopened. He clearly couldn’t deal with it any more, but he wasn’t yet ready to ask for help.
(to be continued)
Tags: dementia, elderly parent, father, short-term memory loss
