Head injuries and memory problems/ dementia later in life

 Many years before my diagnosis, I had a fall from a ladder from around 10 feet and vaguely remember hitting my head, which sounded like an explosion at the time, then nothing

I woke up unsure as to what had happened or where I was, then I realised that I needed to go to the toilet to have a pee

Moments later, I realised that I had mistaken a washbasin for a urinal, and then had to wash it all away and clean in as I was embarrassed that I had done such a thing

I then went back to where I had been working, and was staggered to see the damage I had done, because I thought I could manage on my own, instead of waiting for my colleague

At this stage, I was still unstable and felt drunk, and my head felt as if it had been hit by a very large hammer

I went home as my leg was bleeding, and later that night my wife took me to the hospital as the top right-hand side of my head was badly bruised, but they didn’t want to know anything about it.

I struggled with headaches for many years, but around 5 years later I was driving the car with my daughter in, got home but didn’t remember anything about the journey or the traffic lights I had gone through, luckily my daughter said they were green, but I honestly didn’t know

My wife said she found me in the car in tears as I didn’t know what was going on and thought I may have killed or injured my dear daughter

After a lot of tests, I was told that it was a form of epilepsy and I had had a seizure.

When I returned to work, I was put on restricted duties, which was a nightmare as an engineer, as I was not allowed to use step ladders, etc

When I was later diagnosed as having dementia, they said that I hadn’t had a seizure, but it could have been the start of the dementia, something which never made sense

Now it appears that research is being done into the links between head injuries and memory problems, so I am starting to wonder if my head injury was the cause of all of my problems

It was later found that an MRI scan showed signs of cerebral atrophy and ischemia, which made matters worse and was confusing because no one picked up on this, but by then I was under a neurological specialist who was going by my symptoms and thought it was Lewy body dementia

One of the university medical doctors thought at the time that I had something like encephalitis, but the scans came up negative, so after these later scans, I am more confused

A Recent research project by “Alzheimer’s Research “ has started to prove that head injuries can cause many problems 20 or so years later, so I am hoping this can shed light on what is going on

Technology and Modern day life

When I left school there was very little known about modern technology as we know it today, even the telephone that we have taken for granted these days, was housed in a kiosk in the town centre, where we had to stand in a queue to use it. Very few households had one,  those who did were very were wealthy people, but we got used to it.

In these days if you needed to get the right time,  people were known to ring up the speaking clock, which would recite the time down to the split second, there were no clocks like the modern ones which get there time from a satellite etc

Things seemed to move on when the first men landed on and walked on the moon, something that very few people ever expected to happen I their life time.

I watched this on Television with my father who I am sure, took time to understand this was actually happening.

When I was working as an engineer, the only way I could be contacted by the College was via a Pager,  which sent me a message telling me that I was wanted for a breakdown 

I guess this was my very first start into technology, and little did I know that I would see further big steps into modern technology

My next major step was at home when we had a computer made so that our daughter could study at home, this in turn meant that we had to get on the World Wide Web,  something I knew nothing about. 

But with help from the school and the computer builder we managed to get there 

Then I heard to my horror that I was getting a computer I my office, but I knew next to nothing about these apart from switching the thing on and off.

This computer was in those days an MS DOS and hard a 4" square disc which had to be inserted inside when I was turned on.  Needless to say I got there by the skin of my teeth.

This machine took longer to warm up than the more modern ones, but that's life.

The screen on this machine was only around 9 inches square, so it didn't do much for tge eyesight, but it was not long before I moved onto a more modern machine, which was fast.

Starting to use tge World Wide Web was amazing to see, typing I a question and seeing tge results in seconds, it was at this time out of this world 

After this came a mobile phone for when I was on call, a major step forward from the pager, but for some reason I was never shown how it worked, neither did I get a guide book. So when the old Nokia phone received a text, I got an SOS signal telling me something was wrong and where it was. This was a little alarming walking home and getting an SOS signal from my pocket.

It took me a while to find out how to reply, but I got there in the end.

Life was becoming a nightmare at my age, and everything was changing.

Things moved on quite a lot, but today's smart phones are amazing to look at, as they can do so much and even control things at home while I am away.

Just the thought that I may well, be carrying a small computer in my pocket capable of doing most things these days,  including sending a text or ringing someone up or just taking a photograph. 

There are also ipads and tablet computers these days, which you can do most things on

It's been an amazing journey before the dementia came into my life,  now I am trying to hang onto this for as long as I possibly can.

Many people complain about BIg Brother when they talk about modern technology being able to track people living with dementia, yet it does not bother me, because I understand that if anything goes wrong,  the mobile company can find out where I was seen last and when.

 If these people really thought about it properly, they would realise that satellites track our phones 24 hours a day when they are switched on, so I you don't like it don't buy a mobile phone.