Dementia and Déjà Vu

[dxer13]

I'm just wondering if any of you have experienced what I am experiencing with a close family member. My mother lives with me and has moderate dementia. Nearly every show we watch on TV, she comments during every scene that, "This is a repeat. I remember that (building, hairstyle, car, mountain, etc)."

This has happened during live golf tournaments, season premiers, season finales, and other shows advertised as "all new."

My mom's mom also had dementia. Back in the 70's, she apparently read something about one of the Hogan's Heroes actors quitting the show, and thereafter, every show she watched (Hogan's Heroes or not), she constantly repeated that she had already seen the show and that the actors had all walked off the set.

My mother's older brother also died after suffering from complications of Alzheimers or Dementia. I asked my cousin if he ever had Deja Vu experiences, and she said that any time she showed him new pictures of his great grandchildren, he dismissed them because he had already seen them. (He didn't own a TV, so we can't compare his sense that all TV shows were reruns with his mother's and sister's).

I sent an email to Oliver Sacks, a renowned neurologist and expert on hallucinations, and his assistant replied that he had never heard of any connection between Deja Vu and dementia or Alzheimers.

I'n really curious to hear if any of you have had a family member who experiences the same thing. I did an internet search, and it seems others have had the same question, but there wasn't enough there to draw any conclusions or justify more formal research.

 

[ChasenSFO]

Both of my grandparents on my Mom's side who I grew up with got both Alzheimer's and Dementia simultaneously. They both plugged on for almost 10 years with it, it got so severe for my grandpa that when my grandma died in her sleep next to him(after 50+ years of marriage), he forgot she ever existed as soon as she was taken out of the room. Blessing and a curse at that point I suppose, his actually got so severe that he couldn't even complete a sentence or sign his name the last 2 years of his life and thought he lived in a nursing home and we were all employees. All of that, and never once did either of them ever talk about Deja Vu or think they had already seen something. It was quite the opposite really where everything WAS new to them.

Wish you all the best with your mother, that's one hell of an evil disease I wouldn't wish on anyone, and it only gets worse.

 

[dxer13]

My mother can get off the phone and immediately can't remember what was discussed during the conversation. Or start a conversation and lose her train of thought. That's why this Deja Vu thing is so paradoxical.

Remembering my grandmother suffering from this indeed evil disease, I think the worst part for family members, besides having to watch the suffering helplessly, is when those afflicted forget who you are.

My grandmother and I had been so close, but in the end, she would hiss at me. That was tough.

Thanks for the best wishes.

 

[wainscottbl]

Deja vu is normal, but if it is common, that is something different. I am not sure what it could be. Maybe just the dementia or maybe some other neurological cause. Seizures comes to mind. Simple partial seizures. But that is because I have seizures, have read like crazy about them, even a bit obsessed, kind of like Dostoyevsky. I am by no means making a diagnosis. There are a thousand other neurological reasons.

http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Temporal-Lobe-Epilepsy.htm

It may sound odd, but some people go undiagnosed because partial seizures can seem like normal things such as spacing out and dea vu. They can preceede the convulsive seizures for years, and I suppose a person could even never have a gran ma if their brain works that way. All seizures have a focal point which determines how non-convulsive seizures, like confusion, deja vu, etc feel. Has she had an MRI? EEG? I am dianosed with dementia and I am only 28. "Dementia due to epilepsy" the diagnosis says. Maybe ask the doctor about epilepsy. Ask for a MRI and EEG.