My mom was diagnosed with Anxiety Complex, and once that diagnosis was made, it explained a number of behaviours that I'd been noticing over the years.
Some time before, I began to notice her putting her fingers against her wrist and anxiously "taking her pulse". This came to be followed by statements like "I feel wrtetched". Now to me "wretched" has very heavy connotations indeed - far heavier I think than warrant its application to a woman living comfortably in her own home, away from famine, warfare, gunfire, dungeons, chains and torture. But she used it, and frequently at one stage - not so often now, thank goodness. It used to make me as near as I dare get to angry.
When she comes out with another frequent saying - "I don't feel well" I usually ask what the problem is and get an answer relating to pain - maybe in the leg or back. If she persists - and she does - I often say "Well we'd better get you to the doctor." And her standard reply is - "Oh no, I'll be allright," or "I'm feeling better now." I think the biggest problem for me is trying to sift the truth out of all this.
I do know she has wind in her tummy at times and often complains of pains in the chest area. This caused me a lot of anxiety until the District Nurse was in one day and I asked her to "do mother over", as I needed to be satisfied about whether these pains came from the lungs, heart, stomach or what. Pneumonia is something I am always very conscious of, having had a really bad bout of that once myself and knowing that it's often the final call for the elderly.
The nurse did a very full examination and came up with the following findings : lungs - fine; heart - fine; blood-pressure - completely normal, with "the pulse of an ox". So much for all that.
I don't know if Anxiety Disorder is a normal accompaniment to Alzheimers or not. It might well be, because it must be most unnerving to find things slipping away from you, and I can only imagine the kind of panic that must set in as this situation worsens. Someone else may care to comment on that point.
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