|
NE Iowa | My 78 yr old dad has been in state of slowly declining physical and mental health for the past 5 yrs that started with several 'mini strokes' he had during 1 or both surgeries to fix a twisted colon. He simply has never been the same following these surgeries. But he has been pretty functional in everyday life. He drove grain semi for me during Fall '19 and has driven to see family (along with my mom) 600 miles away several times a year - the latest being 2 1/2 wks ago. 4 days after returning from their latest trip, he had the 2nd COVID shot (Moderna, I believe). 2 days later he was starting to act very odd and insisted my mom take him to the emergency room as he thought he wasn't long for this world. They ran every test in the book on him - didn't keep him overnight, but was in ER for the whole day and had several scans, blood work, vitals, etc and they found nothing to be concerned about. This was 10 days ago. He has progressively gotten much worse and is having delusions/hallucinations (I don't think they are the same, but I don't remember the difference) and is simply out of it. His motor functions are very poor (trips, trouble zipping a jacket, etc). He is barred from driving. My layman's description is that his brain is scrambled. There are times when he can have a coherent discussion, and there are times that he is seeing or thinking things that are simply not there. Examples include he called my mom in to ask her why there are kids playing on the floor (there are no kids at their place) or he got up to go help his mother in the garden (his mother passed when he was 16). He generally talks with understandable words or phrases (not just meaningless noise), but what he is saying, more often than not, doesn't make any sense (to us, of course - makes perfect sense to him).
This step function deterioration in his condition is simply too closely timed with his 2nd COVID shot to ignore the possibility of that being the trigger. There were no other changes in his medication or life during any of these past few weeks. Of course they have been to the doc and are waiting for an appointment with specialists (neuro-surgeons, I believe) in both our closest town (Waterloo) and in a much better medical facility (Iowa City). Doc's initial diagnosis is something in the Parkinson's family, which is certainly plausible, but this sudden and rapid deterioration would not seem to be consistent with 'normal' Parkinson's progression.
There are certainly lots of folks here that have first hand experience with dementia afflicted folks - anyone ever hear of a response to the COVID vaccine like this?
| |
|
COVID Vaccination and dementia
