Suggest Ways To Manage Dementia In An Elderly Person

Posted on Sat, 25 Mar 2017

Medically reviewed by Ask A Doctor - 24x7 Medical Review Team

Sat, 25 Mar 2017 Answered on

Sat, 22 Apr 2017 Last reviewed on

Question : HI DI am femal, 68 yrs. old. At age 54 I had the first of 5 hemmoragic{sp] XXXXXXX strokes. I was in ICU on life support,& dialysis. My brain would bleed for length amounts of time. Ipulled thru with no paralysis, bot residual brain damage. My Dr. was foreign, & my husband han a hard time communicating with him. My primary care Dr. did the explaining to him & my daughter. One thing I have never rec'd an answer for is why? What causes this? I was healthy, had low bl. pressure, no choles problems. I have not had a nother major stroke in about 10 yrs. My strokes all took place over a 4-5 yr. period. I have changed neurologist. Over past 6 month, I will be fine one minute, then something happens that makes me talk out of my head,mylegs & arms are wet spaghetti,totally useless. Iusually don't remember what appens even in th E.D. Everything..... labs, MRI come back negative. I know thi is complex & you don't have much info to work with,so I understand your position. I happened to come across article on silent strkes. I had never heard of the. I do knowI,ve heard of TIA's but dr. says this is not what, s happening. He sais as I get older, my brain damage worsens. I now have dementia. Any idea's?

Answered by Dr. Olsi Taka (47 minutes later)

Brief Answer:
Tough without more information.

Detailed Answer:
I read your question carefully and I understand your concern.

As you seem to realize evaluation is difficult with the current information. Do you at least know if all the strokes were in the same location? If that is the case then a blood vessel malformation would be the most likely cause. If on the other hand those strokes were in different locations that is unlikely. In that case most likely hypotheses would be amyloid angiopathy (deposition of an abnormal protein in blood vessels). Usually hemorrhages happen after the age of 60 though. Another possibility would be that of vasculitis, inflammation of blood vessels. As I said it is difficult without being able to view some reports, only listing a couple of common primary brain causes. Perhaps if you could provide some reports I might give a totally different opinion.

As for the episodes you describe and are thinking about silent stroke I do not think that is the case. Silent strokes refer to the case where there are no symptoms (hence silent) but a stroke is seen on MRI which you say to be normal. I would look more into the possibility of those being seizures, would start with an EEG if not already done.

I remain at your disposal for other questions.

Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Raju A.T