My wife who is 61 years young had a car accident 10 years ago and after a 6 month coma was given rehabilitative care for a year before being moved on to a care home with brain injury specialties, where she has continuously resided. She can't walk and speech is difficult. She has poor cognitive abilities and a memory that seems to last about a fortnight with a small understanding of the past. She knows I am her husband. She has been fairly stable for the last ten years but just lately, she is mixing up the distant past with reality. e.g. she thinks she is married to her ex-partner from 30 years ago, and she thinks she is going to leave him to shack up with a guy called Pete, who is actually me - I think - and that is what really happened, but she thinks this is happening now and asking me if I mind….very strange. Snippets of the past creeping into today’s reality. Plus lots of other weirdness. Very disconcerting.
Has anyone got any first-hand experience with what a severe tbi sufferer will expect after 10 years as I am lost a little?
Wondering if this is the start of Alzheimer’s/dementia or if it is the tbi.
Written by
Hank_Stains
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That's a tough question Hank and there's lots of conjecture amongst the brain injury community as to whether the two are linked. The issue is widely discussed on online health sites but still seems a grey area, not only in the functional sense but in the uniqueness of every individual.
You might get the most up to date information from speaking with a member of the Headway team on 0808 800 2244 (freephone-office hours). Hope this helps...
Hi Hank, I truly sympathise, my sister is similar since a massive stroke in September 2021. It's heartbreaking and tragic.I can only add that its quite common for cared for older people to pick up a urine infection (UTI), particularlywomen for obvious reasons. A UTI in an older person presents just like dementia and they'll revert back to their normal after a course of antibiotics. I hope this is the case for your wife, if not I'm not experienced enough to comment on the brain injury aspect if it's decline. I'm so sorry. It might be worth gently asking the care home if they've tested her urine (it's a simple dip stick test, if positive for UTI they can ring surgery for antibiotics). It's happened several times to my sister, her family thought dementia or another stroke & each time turned out to be a urine infection.
Sorry to hear what you are going through with your wife. Any head injury will affect the normal progress of aging and cognitive decline (dementia).
You could get your wife assessed with a medical professional and they could do a brain scan to see if there are any plaques on the brain causing Alzheimer’s which is a progress disease. It might be hard to get a diagnosis with it since a tbi can have similar symptoms.
I do know with age related cognitive decline people with start talking more about their past when they were younger (something to do with decline of short term memory which makes the long term memory easier to access) and with your wife’s head injury this may be amplified due to whichever part of her brain was injured.
All I know after going through this kind of decline with family members is that you have to be strong and not take offense when the person mixes up who you are.
It is heartbreaking to experience a tbi let alone any other age related decline.
I wish you best of luck in figuring out what is going on with your wife.
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