Mind/brain help for aging parents - Need suggestions

My ex Father in Law began to get dementia fairly bad before he passed. His daughters put him on a strict Keto diet and swore he made great improvements. I wasn’t around enough to see both phases but I believe it helped. Can’t hurt to try imho. Good luck. That’s no fun

Weed

Get edibles

Prevagen gets advertised to hell and back?

It just appears to be something rendered from a jellyfish. Maybe if the folks in question are on blood thinners it could be an issue, but otherwise it can’t hurt to try?

Anybody here try it?

B vitamin supplements. No alcohol.

Go through the refrigerator and cabinets and see how much long-expired food is in there.

Get a 3rd opinion from a doctor.

This is just a 2 cents, with absolutely zero medical/education to back it up. Just a little experience with family members.

First, does she realize she has memory issues and wants to fix? And second, assume she lives alone? If she lives alone, see if there is some activity that she can do that puts her with other people. I know that's hard right now, but see what can be done. One of my grandma's had a great memory until an all of a sudden (probable stroke) event when she was 98. She lived on her own in a retirement apartment, but was around people a lot as she volunteered as a "foster grandmother" at a community center, where she played games and did various art activities with primarily inner city kids. My other grandmother's memory went downhill fast after my granddad died. She was by herself most of the time, with little social interaction. I'm convinced the difference between the two was social activity.

If she knows she has a problem and wants to fix it, help her find memory exercises that she enjoys. Search-a-word, crosswords, jumble puzzles, etc. Treat your brain like every other muscle that needs exercising. Short term memory especially can be exercised and improve. It may not have been the intended purpose, but your high school English teacher making you memorize Shakespeare soliloquies ("to be or not to be", etc) was helping you build up your short term memory.

If it's "just old age", and not a medical issue, the disuse of short term memory made it get out of shape. The good news is that it can be exercised and come back. But SHE has to want to do the exercise, which is why it needs to be something fun for her. Memorizing song lyrics, Shakespeare, doing puzzles, playing card games like concentration (can be done on computer or with an old fashioned deck of cards), etc.

Not a doctor but doesn't kidney problems or UTI cause weirdness in the elderly?

Vitamin E is the only vitamin that has decent evidence that it might help Alzheimer’s. The important thing is that they see a dedicated geriatrician MD to go over meds, labs, and track her cognitive issues. I’ve heard promising things about CBD but probably not enough research to prove that at this point. That said, I doubt CBD would make it worse.

ETA: I’m an MD but not in primary care, although I do see a lot of elderly patients.

Google The 36 Hour Day and buy/read it yourself and have your siblings do the same. It will help you look for other things that may be happening and you can then have more information to give to the Neurologist.

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It is to the point she is forgetting if she ate lunch that day or what day of the week it even is. She'll ask the same question 2-3 times in a single conversation

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I'm no doctor, but this IS dementia. If not, what is it?

Mind Care supplements by a company called Himalaya work great for memory, I can attest to that. LINK
2 in the morning, 2 at night, a bottle of 120 lasts a month.