Karen’s Vascular Dementia Journey

Please excuse me for recycling our blog from Karen's kidney transplant journey but it was the quickest way to get information out to those of you who love Karen and want to keep up with this new journey.

Here is a (hopefully) brief summary of events up until now. Karen was diagnosed with Vascular Dementia in October 2024. Although the symptoms are similar to Alzheimer's disease, she does not have Alzheimer's. At that time it was classified as Early Stage Vascular Dementia with Mild Cognitive Impairment. She was retested in October 2025 and had progressed rather quickly to Middle Stage Dementia. So far we are blessed that she still knows all of the family and friends and has maintained that positive attitude and sense of humor that has become her trademark!

One of the symptoms of this disease is unsteadiness on her feet and frequent falls and this has had the biggest impact on Karen. They say that it's not a matter of "if" someone with this disease will fall but rather "when" they will fall. And this happens despite the best efforts to keep her safe. Since Thanksgiving 2025 she has had 4 significant falls which have resulted in a broken right wrist, broken right humerus at the shoulder and a subsequent rebreak of the same fracture. Her most recent fall was on this past Monday 2/2 when she broke her left hip and left clavicle. She had surgery on Tuesday to stabilize the hip but the clavicle does not require any intervention.

As far as cognitive issues, she is pretty clear headed in the mornings but as the day progresses or when she is in pain or very tired she has more confusion. Because of the mobility issues with her fractures as well as lack of appetite, she has become very weak.

She is currently at Forsyth Hospital but will be moving this afternoon to the Skilled Nursing area at Brookridge where she will also be receiving rehab. We will determine next steps after we see how rehab progresses.

We will try to update this blog as significant events or changes occur.

Rusty