My mom started to show signs of Parkinson's 8-9 yrs. ago although for 3 yrs. of that time I couldn't convince her to go to a Dr. to get a diagnosis. She started losing wt. 8yrs. ago and has steadily lost wt. until she has now lost 70 lbs. About a yr. ago she started to forget things I had told her on the phone & she forgot appts. . The Dr. kept upping her PD med even as she con't to lose wt. One day she began hallucinating. I thought it was her meds. I told her Dr. and he seemed more concerned about the fact she had passed out several times than he was about her seeing people, animals, etc. He just ignored me when I told him about hallucinations. By this time she had called police for a burglar that wasn't really there and the fire dept. We didn't know what was happening but it scared us. How did someone who had healthy lose this much wt. this fast and then start hallucinating and being confused? Then 1 day something changed or happened and she wandered off and didn't know where she was, had locked herself out of the house. Got to hospital where she was taken by police and she was glassy-eyed and didn't know what had happened or why she was there. She was evaluated and diagnosed with dementia. They said she had some old small mini-strokes on her MRI but nothing new.
I just don't understand what happened so fast. Between when her confusion started and she was diagnosed with dementia was less than a yr. Her symptoms all seemed mixed with the Parkinson's and those meds and we just seemed to lose her so fast we're still in shock.
My dad is in early stages of dementia. I have had to jump in and take over finances, their medical care, everything for them. I'm disabled myself and I'm so overwhelmed and can't do this all by myself. I need help but don't know where to get it.
I don't want my mother to be upset or constantly yelled at or bruised but I hate to separate them. I don't know what to do.