Cousin may have Alzheimer's but her local family in denial

pq

I'll try to keep this brief but it's hard: I think my younger cousin, 56, has Alzheimer's. Last January she had an MRI that (i think) showed some shrinkage in lobes of her brain (she reported this to me at the time, with the fear that she had Alzheimer's). She had a PET scan in April that showed elevated amyloid protein in 3 of 4 lobes, with the fourth being at the extreme high end of normal. I don't know if she's ever been back in contact with the neurologist who performed the PET scan.

The complication: since the end of May, Cousin's behavior has become more and more erratic. She's manic, she's not taking her prescribed medications for anxiety and depression, instead treating herself with a combination of OTC meds, old prescriptions, health treatments touted on TikTok, and an ungodly amount of cannabis. She's been urine incontinent and bowel icontinent for months. She's paranoid, suspicious of any suggestion that she has a problem, but in the next breath says she's dying. She's threatened her husband AND herself. There are 9000 other details I could add, but things were so bad that her husband and mother tried to get her involuntarily hospitalized to get her help, They were unsuccessful, but Cousin actually ended up going to an ER herself, and was transferred to a state mental hospital for two weeks. But then they released her, and now she's a little calmer (so I'm told) but still paranoid, suspicious, has told a friend she is no longer taking the meds her psych prescribed, and back to abusing cannabis.

I am 700 miles away and, from what I can tell, the family have adopted a plan of just watching her and hoping she's going to just get better on her own. They focus on the substance abuse and self-treatment, and seem to have decided to just ignore the possible Alzheimer's and not try to pursue getting her to the neurologist again or even talking to them to share her symptoms. And nobody wants to upset Cousin by confronting her about any of it, so… we're just waiting for the trainwreck, I guess?

I've shared resources with the family, and been encouraging them to work actively with her doctors to try to get her a diagnosis and/or treatment plan, or even just strategies for how to deal with her disturbing and sometimes alarming behavior on a daily basic. But everyone seems to fall back into "Well, we'll just see what happens." And I do understand: this is hard hard stuff, and I'm not living with her so it's easy to say "do this." And I know my family are emotionally shredded by what they've been going through with her. But at the same time, it feels like everyone's landed on "do nothing" as the only way forward.

I've stopped offering any suggestions because I don't want to alienate anyone, and at this point it's basically just me repeating myself. But then I feel guilty because I feel l'm giving up on this woman who is more like a sister than a cousin to me.

Has anyone else had this experience of being far away and feeling helpless this way?

JulietteBee

That is a horrible situation all around & I am so sorry you want to help, yet left to feel helpless.

I do not have any personal experience to share. What I would dare to suggest is for you to "divide & conquer."

It is usually very hard to stop "group think" while the "group" remains intact.

Which one do you have a genuinely close relationship with, mom or hubby?

Whoever that person is, reach out to them, directly. Share with them the knowledge you have gleaned about the disease; testing, staging, treatment, etc.. Share your concerns, referring back to previous scan results and her apparent decline.

You might be surprised to hear that person is not 100% in agreement with the other and is more receptive to you having a talk with them.

Empower them to take the lead in cousin's care. I wish you all the best.🫂