Gerrard Kaonga
A 30-year-old man has detailed the shocking changes he saw in his mother after she was diagnosed with early-onset dementia.
Jordan Adams, from Redditch, England, has spoken candidly about the difficulty he and his siblings faced as they saw their mother, Geraldine, deteriorate due to early-onset dementia, while also dealing with the fear that they too could carry the faulty gene that causes the condition.
His mother was diagnosed in 2010 with Early-Onset Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) and it meant that she was terminally ill as she would get progressively worse over a 6-10 year period.
Jordan described his mother as being outgoing and very much the life of any party and ‘ready to talk to absolutely anybody and light up [their] day’.
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However, a change in this behavior marked one of the first signs of the debilitating condition, according to the son.
Speaking of the early signs, Jordan noted: “I remember clearly the first signs that she wasn’t well. She’d stopped wanting to socialize and developed very low moods. She started repetitively asking the same questions.”
He added that normal trips, like being dropped by car to school, became ‘traumatic’. He noted that she would forget to check her blind spot and regularly bump into other motorists.
Her license was eventually revoked and Jordan has spoken about needing to make sure she didn’t drive in case she had forgotten this fact.
Jordan has noted that he and his family had to learn how to take better care of his mother as she eventually became bed-bound and needed extra help to bathe, feed herself and go to the bathroom.
Geraldine died on March 14, 2016, at the age of 52.
Following her death, Jordan’s older sister, Kennedy, felt the need to get the test to see if she had inherited the faulty MAPT gene which leads to early-onset dementia.
She was given the all clear, and following this Jordan and his younger brother, Cian, also got the test.
Both brothers discovered that they had the gene and have taken the news in stride, choosing to have an optimistic view of life and a determination to make the most of it.
While Jordan is sure he and his brother will die of this condition - having already lost 12 other relatives to FTD - he is keen to help find a cure and contribute to research efforts.
He now takes annual tests at the University College London to help others with the gene who come after him. He has also run marathons to raise money to help fund research for the condition.