My 66 year old mother retired last August. She moved in with us at the time. Her job was everything for her and I know it was a transition. I haven't lived with my mother for 20+ years and we were always so close. Since living with us, she is mean and argumentative at times, especially with my son who is 12. She was repeating herself alot. Memory seems intact but she is also hoarding stuff in her room, and refuses to throw things away. I have found an excessive amount of baby wipes, pads, and stashes of snacks in her room. She watches tv all the time in her room and sits in the dark. She is active and going to exercise class daily which she loves. She doesn't seem like "my mom" and I have tried to talk with her multiple times about it. Once she said it was a hard year, another time she said she would talk to the doctor. I hate bringing it up. My aunts thought she was an alcoholic but I don't see her drinking in my house. She also has strange eating habits-eating so much less and eating a ton of pureed foods out of pouches. She was so close to my son and she only argues with him now and never hugs him. I talked to her doctor and he said she was fine. Help!
Many PCPs slough off the possibility of a younger patient suffering from dementia without administering a cognition test, aka a MoCa test which is pretty short and simple. It will give you a baseline to see where she's at now on a scale from 1-30. See if you can get her tested.
This isn't about whether she should have or should not have moved in with you....but about what's going on here! A person shouldn't change their personality overnight and nobody worries about it!
Go with your gut. Don't give up till you get an answer. The TIA could have been TIAs and they could have caused cognitive impairment which is what you're seeing. Good luck!
Just think that your priority now is not mothering your mother, but mothering your son. And fostering independence for your mother.
Wishing you the best of luck going forward, and hope you find a good solution.
Do you know any of Moms former fellow employees? If so contact them and ask if they had seen any changes in her before her retirement? The hoarding is a problem especially if new. Medicare asks that u have a physical yearly. Tell her doctor you want labs done to rule out any physical problems. A thyroid not working correctly will cause hormonal problems. If the labs find no problems then I suggest a CT scan or MRI to rule out any brain changes. Go with that gut feel. Then you can go from there.
If everything is normal, maybe Mom would be better on her own. She was independent for years now she is living with people. Big changes in her life.
I'd only be guessing, but it sounds like blood supply issues to the frontal lobe (personality).
What tests did her doctor perform to ascertain "she was fine"?
An MRI/CT scan might provide some supporting evidence.
If that checks out, then perhaps a psychologist could assist with cognitive behavior therapy - the cessation of work may have been traumatic, leaving her without purpose/identity.
I have wanted her to move here for years when my son was young. All of a sudden she couldn't seem to handle working and wanted to retire (which is reasonable since she is 66). I don't think she managed her money well(she said she couldn't afford to live on her own. She has looked at places near us but she thinks they are too expensive.
All I did was give her the option to move with us and she wanted to do it. I didn't force her.
She had all the tests done, she has high BP and cholesterol but on meds. She has had a TIA which is why I am concerned. I have tried to get her to talk to someone (psychologist) but she ends up quitting it. Yes, she does rotate from being active during the day to a different person at night. Some days she seems herself and other days she doesn't at all.