After Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn took a buyout offer, he began a free weekly enewsletter chockfull of his pithy commentary. I almost always agree with Zorn’s liberal political positions and count on him for evidence-backed arguments. But it was the personal item with which Zorn led off his last issue that prompted me to tell him thank you. He wrote about his mother’s dementia. 

“Dementia is not mere forgetfulness,” he said, “but a constellation of behavioral symptoms and deficiencies that only get worse over time and try everyone’s patience and stamina.”

I’ve written about my mother now and then — about losing her husband of 72 years four months after they moved into assisted living; the COVID isolation that began three months later; her falls and rehab. 

I haven’t used the word “dementia,” however, because the assisted living home does not have a memory care unit, and my siblings and I haven’t wanted to suggest that she needs one. But since her caregivers haven’t said anything about her cognition, and Mom is not a risk for wandering away or acting belligerently, I’m following Zorn’s lead and writing about dementia. 

Mom isn’t as severely affected as Zorn’s mother, who doesn’t always remember her family members. Dementia has many types and manifestations. Mom recognizes my voice when I phone. She can converse, although struggling for words. We guess what she is trying to say, and when we fail, she is understandably frustrated and gives up. 

Not recalling the names of two neighbors with whom she eats three meals a day, she refers to them as “my friends.” We’ve noticed that she doesn’t say much when they visit her, perhaps because she can’t find words to join in their conversation. We worry that they’ll misinterpret her silence as disapproval and stop visiting and coming to remind her that it’s time for a meal or an activity.

We have to phone her because Mom doesn’t know how to call out even though we programmed and labeled nine buttons for one-touch speed dialing. Her television remains on one station because she can’t use the remote. She knows her birth date but not her age.

No doubt the many months of confinement during COVID exacerbated Mom’s memory problems. She coped with isolation by coloring. Now she says that she can’t find the coloring books, which we put within arm’s reach on the table next to her recliner. She seems to have lost interest, a sign of depression. 

I’d thought Mom’s frequent falls were caused by osteoporosis and arthritis. Reading about dementia, I learned that cognitive decline may have contributed to her physical problems. Dementia can affect areas of the brain responsible for movement and balance. 

About his mother, Zorn said, “[H]er general lack of awareness of what’s happened to her is virtually the only compensatory blessing of her condition.” My mother is aware of what has happened to her. I don’t know what to realistically hope for except that she knows that she hasn’t been forgotten. We visit regularly, my brother every day, although we doubt that she tracks when each of us was last there.

*****

FOLLOWING UP LAST WEEK’S POST ABOUT CHOLESTEROL

Not to make light of memory issues, but my memory has declined, too. I wrote about cholesterol last week forgetting that three years ago I was wondering whether taking red yeast rice had been the reason that my cholesterol numbers had dropped between lipid tests.

Why my memory suddenly reawakened a few days ago is a mystery. I don’t remember, however, why I quit red yeast rice after the encouraging results. Perhaps it was because some healthcare practitioners discourage unregulated remedies, but my then doctor approved. 

Maybe my cholesterol numbers would have stayed down if I’d continued to take red yeast rice. Along with the diet changes mentioned last week, I’m taking it again — plus Coenzyme Q10, which red yeast rice depletes.