His usually well-managed personality disorders came to the fore and overtook his personality completely.

It was sad and scary to watch.

and I sensed his declining language skills years before his friends called family to come look in on him and even more years before he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's. Initially, I thought it was attributable to standard age-related cognitive decline and once we uncovered his behavior from his friends and looking through his computer history, it was apparent how much he had devolved.

His dementia made him rude, short-tempered, difficult and possibly the most miserable person I have ever been around.

has been argumentative, defensive, and
manipulative.

I really didn't know how that worked for a long time,
so I would get reactive and sometimes lose my
temper and always felt so frustrated with them.

Finally, a good friend explained it to me, and now
I'm free of it.

I was way too stubborn learing that lesson, but now
I realize that I'm just not cut out to deal with it...
and I'm good with that.

But to be honest, most of them are frustrated, confused and scared and it comes out as aggression. The more secure and well-adjusted life they had in early childhood the better off they seem to be when facing dementia in my observation. I do wonder how well that bears out in the data.

Because I have gotten burned out on it. My father is still around but his personality is completely different. The person he is now is someone I wouldn't care to be around or deal with at all. It is so bad that his younger sister kind of looks at him as not being her brother anymore. She would drive to see him -- 16 hours, round trip -- only to have him refuse to even roll over in bed and acknowledge her.

He complained about the food in the senior living center where he resided, so she took him out to good restaurants. He wouldn't even finish the food he ordered and refused to acknowledge it having any worth or thank her for making the effort. I was constantly apologizing to staff for his behavior, only to have my sister come in later and treat them with suspicion because she took my father's delusional complaints to heart.

On occasion, I would be privy to what he told others about his children when he forgot who he was talking to, how he derided us for abandoning him. All that even though I was looking in on him every other day, going out and shopping for him and bringing things to him even though I battle mobility issues myself. I neglected aspects of my own life to go with him to all his doctor appointments and manage his health care and it didn't faze him.

He is utterly incapable of gratitude in his current state. Nothing and no one makes him happy even though he is surrounded by those in worse shape than him. In an ER unit one night -- he went in due to a possible UTI -- he started raising hell because the personnel beyond the door he tried to hail were ignoring him.

"These are the sorriest people in the world," he spat.

"Dad, you hear that noise, that rhythmic machine across the hall? That is a machine giving CPR to someone who just arrived by ambulance because they're having a major heart attack," I said. "That is what everyone is focusing on right now." It quieted him for a couple of minutes at least.

It might be easier to deal if I could remind myself that he was always there for us when we were growing up. But he wasn't. He left our home when I was about 8 years old. He wasn't a textbook deadbeat dad, but he wasn't far from it. We saw him a couple of times a year, sometimes with one of his girlfriends in tow and that was it. He was always behind in child support payments even though he had a college degree and my mentally ill mother with just a high school diploma was trying to raise two kids at a time when women had just been allowed to have their own credit cards.

Later in life, he started feeling guilty about his absence and tried to make it up. We tried to forgive him but it doesn't change the fact he wasn't cut out to be a father.

I spent many hours searching in the research journals for natural products/plant medicine to help with mood and cognitive impairment for my elderly mom. Had noticeable success with her, but of course YMMV. Happy to share here if it may be something you want to look into and try out:

*Saffron made a difference. The dosage I'd seen used with success in the research was about 30mg of "Affron" which is an extract, but you can see if regular saffron works, too. Here are a couple of overviews of the research:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9781906/

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12103703/

*Pycnogenol (pine bark extract) also seemed positive in research, and helped her as well.

Her mood and social engagement lifted after taking *ashwagandha. Gummies called "WonderCalm" worked great for her. You can find them online or at Whole Foods. Look for the little sample pack. She was petite so I sometimes just gave her 1/3 or 1/2 of a gummy and saw results. My mom actually asked for it a few times when she was agitated.

*Lemon balm is also calming. Had great success with an instant tea powder I found at Whole Foods called Mood (by Four Sigmatic), just needed the tiniest bit to shift her into pleasantness, less than 1/64th of a teaspoon for her... yes I bought a set of tiny measuring spoons online to keep the dosage standardized.

Wish I'd known about these products years ago. As far as I could find, they were all fine to take without side effects or interactions with her cardiac and thyroid meds, and I ran them by her doctors first just to be sure. I'm sure you'd do the same! They will not have any clue about the beneficial aspects of these if they're like most doctors but at least see if they or your dad's pharmacist might have any concerns.

I would start with the ashwagandha or lemon balm for mood and the saffron for cognitive (plus it helps some with depression).

So many of us have been in the same boat... it takes everything we have and then some, right? not giving medical advice, just offering some things to check out. I hope this helps!

This is very interesting information. Thanks for posting!

I finally said enough. They were too stubborn
and combative over simple mistakes.

I just don't have the temperament to deal
with it.

None of my family had it.

So that was my big life lesson, learning about
dementia the hard way.

I'm so sorry your last memory is so bitter. I hope there are good times to remember.

from say, 10 years before his diagnosis, that person doesn't exist anymore.

My older sis was just diagnosed with dementia last year. Her husband ignored the problem until last year when he realized it wasn’t going away. And trump reminds me of her in his speaking. She is forgetting a lot of words and substitutes puppy for those words. It can be tough to keep up with her train but we do our best.

What?
When was that? In '16 when he was making fun of a disabled reported with feral grunts?
When his tweets said "failing" every other post?
This guy's frame of reference seems a bit off.

on him getting a thorough neurological exam. This was before I realized his kids are just as weird, shameless and transactional as he is.

All the way to his "reality" show, his catch phrase was 2 words.
It's not like he was giving lectures on business principles.
I have no recollection of him speaking eloquently, ever.

Rec

I just used examples from '16.
There wasn't a sterling record of eloquence before that.

and I copied that very same passage with the intention of asking if anyone here on the DU ever knew that to be true.

I obviously feel very much the same as you. Trump has always spoken like a simpleton, despite his claim that "I have the best words."

‘When was that?’
We’ve forever heard and read that his speech and grammar is at a grade 4 level - at best!
Maybe THAT is why the MAGATS are so attuned to him….
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

You could see him on TV or hear on the Howard Stern show.Around 2000, maybe?

Even back then most everyone in the tristate area knew he was a dirtbag. I never considered him to be of low intellect, though, until part way through his first term.

I don't remember ever thinking of him as polished. But then, I hardly knew who he was before he ran for president the first time.

People will care about double digit inflation, which is on the way, and hopefully will arrive before the midterms.

The economy will have to get worse before “Joe Average” and “Cathy Distracty” start waking up.

We have a literal demented sociopath running the country, and the idiots around him follow his orders, and/or convince him of the crazy things like Gestapo Steven Miller seems to have his number.

He’s only gotten dumber. He never had good speaking skills and mostly sounded stupid.

He was never eloquent and now he’s a blithering idiot.

73 years old from Queens, he was always an inarticulate asshole - they say that dogs can understand between i think 400-800 human words - he can’t speak that many.

I think Dr. Gardner is an asshole - I’ve listened to their podcasts a number of times and it’s bullshit.

Little Donny is nothing like he was as little as 5 years ago. My mom had dementia and little Donny is showing the same type of cognitive decline she had. You don’t need to be a shrink to see that little Donny is losing his marbles

He was definitely more articulate, although he was never a great orator or even conversationalist. His vocabulary was just ok. But, that said, he's deteriorated immensely over the years. Half the time now, he doesn't even make any sense.

They both were more eloquent than trump. They also maintained empathy for others, and a sense of right and wrong. trump has neither, and probably never did.

ballroom.

He doesn't understand that talking about the ballroom won't win him a single extra vote. In fact, he will lose votes by keep on talking about it. Even though he is a manipulator, he talks about it because he is so proud of himself for making it happen, and wants to boast about it, unaware that he should never talk about it.

He cannot think beyond where his emotions take him at any given moment in time. He is unable to understand what is most important or think in a complex way, considering the consequences of what he says or does. This is a very dangerous situation.

I watched the show. Gartner made a great presentation.