Hi my 72 year old father has been diagnosed at a neurologists appt today.
Background:
I have been noticing non-motor symptoms for several years, confusion, inability to to do tasks, not liking to plan anything, anxiety etc getting gradually worse and as his eldest brother had Alzeimers and his middle brother has parkinsons, we finally persuaded him to have a private brain scan 2 years ago - this showed he had had a few mini strokes. December 2011 he had another mini stroke and was admitted to hospital overnight following A&E assessment. Then put on statins, aspirin etc. Follow up appt to heart/stroke consultant and GP a few weeks later resulted in both my father and my mum being happy that there were no more appts booked and he was signed as fit to drive again! I kept saying but what about the memory problems, look how he's walking, his balance is going, he has no strength but as my mum was convinced he was getting better/back to normal (DENIAL!) and my dad felt there was nothing wrong. Since January this year, post the mini stroke memory, repeating information, inability to find the right words has all got worse. My brother and I were sure he was going to get a vascular dementure diagnosis today - we felt the vascular problems and his lack of motivation to do anything other than sit watching TV or fall asleep was the reasons for his stiffness. He doesn't have a tremor yet - although i had noticed for the last couple of months he has had some problems using cutlery - due to lack of strength.