Pandemic isolation has killed thousands of Alzheimer’s patients while families watch from afar

For the past several years and as recently as February my 81 yr old mother has been categorized as "mild cognitive impairment".

In early August that changed to early Alzheimer's.

The doctor at the Senior Assessment Center said that they have seen a great many of their patients have this sudden accelerated decline since the lockdowns went into effect due to mandatory mask-wearing, stress, depression, isolation and so on.

And the fucking media has so many of them scared they refuse to go out. Mom won't even go to a grocery store with me at slow times even wearing a mask she is so afraid of catching this thing.

Since the pandemic began, Goerke’s wife, Denise — 63 years old and afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease — had declined dramatically. Left alone in her nursing home, she had lost 16 pounds, could not form the simplest words, no longer responded to the voices of her children.

In recent weeks, she had stopped recognizing even the man she loved.

Goerke, 61, could tell the isolation was killing his wife, and there was nothing he could do but watch. “Every day it gets a little worse,” he said. “We’ve lost months, maybe years of her already.”

Beyond the staggering U.S. deaths caused directly by the novel coronavirus, more than 134,200 people have died from Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia since March. That is 13,200 more U.S. deaths caused by dementia than expected, compared with previous years, according to an analysis of federal data by The Washington Post.

Overlooked amid America’s war against the coronavirus is this reality: People with dementia are dying not just from the virus but from the very strategy of isolation that’s supposed to protect them. In recent months, doctors have reported increased falls, pulmonary infections, depression and sudden frailty in patients who had been stable for years.

Social and mental stimulation are among the few tools that can slow the march of dementia. Yet even as U.S. leaders have rushed to reopen universities, bowling alleys and malls, nursing homes say they continue begging in vain for sufficient testing, protective equipment and help.

“It’s like we as a country just don’t care anymore about older people,” said Goerke, as he drove to his wife’s nursing home in Atlanta’s northern suburbs. “We’ve written them off.”

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America has counted tens of thousands of excess deaths since the pandemic began. These are deaths not recorded as due to the coronavirus and occur from causes such as hypertension or sepsis. But they are occurring at much higher levels than in the past. Many of the deaths are likely undiagnosed cases of coronavirus, experts say, while others are likely due to indirect effects from the pandemic — hospitals being overrun or care being delayed.

GRTWT