“I’m not a child”: How Alzheimer’s disease changes life for the whole family

Vasily was helping his grandmother in the kitchen and turned down the heat on the stove.

“Why did you turn it up?” she asked.

“I didn’t turn it up. I turned it down from nine to six.”

“But you did turn it up. Six is bigger.”

Vasily tried to explain the order of the numbers. His grandmother became indignant.

“To say I was shocked would be an understatement. I didn’t know how to react, so I just agreed with her,” he recalls.

The young man lives with his grandmother, who he says has Alzheimer’s disease. In their daily lives, it manifests itself in missed meals, untouched medication, searches across the city and arguments over things that once needed no explanation.

The family first noticed changes several years ago. His grandmother repeated the same stories and forgot what she had been told. At first, they put it down to her age.

Then one day, she could not find her way home. In a neighboring courtyard, she asked passersby whether they knew where she lived.

“She used to know the bus routes and could get around the whole city on her own,” Vasily says.

That was when the family realized this went beyond ordinary forgetfulness.

According to the World Health Organization, dementia affects memory, thinking and the ability to carry out everyday activities. Possible early signs include becoming disoriented even in familiar places, difficulty making decisions and trouble performing familiar tasks. Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia. Dementia, however, is not an inevitable consequence of aging.

For Vasily’s family, that first incident was not the last. His grandmother went out several times, leaving relatives searching for her across the city. Her phone helped. She took it with her, allowing the family to locate her.

Such experiences were the subject of a University College London study published in Age and Ageing in 2025. The researchers conducted interviews and a focus group involving 33 participants, including family caregivers of people with dementia, police officers, healthcare professionals and researchers.

Their accounts revealed that leaving home can sometimes be linked to past routines. A person may believe they need to go to work or collect their children from school, even though those responsibilities ended long ago. In other cases, an ordinary walk can lead to difficulty finding the way back.

This qualitative study describes participants’ experiences rather than establishing how often each scenario occurs among all people with dementia. However, it illustrates why families need to understand their loved ones’ habits and discuss support in advance. Participants also highlighted the usefulness of location-tracking devices, alongside the need for support from services and the wider community.

Vasily’s grandmother began struggling at home, too. Over a few months, she lost a significant amount of weight. She almost stopped cooking and ate very little: a day’s food might consist of tea with biscuits or gingerbread.

Yet when her grandson looked after her and reminded her to have lunch and dinner, she ate well.

“She needed reminding that it was time to have lunch or dinner,” he says.

Simple question “Have you eaten?” became part of caregiving. Having food in the house did not necessarily mean his grandmother was eating properly.

The U.S. National Institute on Aging explains that eating difficulties in Alzheimer’s disease can have several causes. Medication, a lack of physical activity and a reduced sense of smell and taste can all affect appetite. As the disease progresses, eating itself may become more difficult.

Specialists recommend maintaining familiar mealtimes and surroundings, reducing distracting noise, allowing enough time to eat and supporting independence wherever possible. The reasons for changes in an individual’s eating habits need to be assessed separately.

Medication presented Vasily with another problem. Whenever he asked his grandmother whether she had taken her pills, she said yes. Yet the packets remained almost untouched.

“We would check when they should have been running out, and almost all the pills were still there,” he says.

He had to start supervising her medication. His grandmother did not like it.

“I’m not a child. Leave me alone. I can manage without you,” Vasily recalls her saying.

To the family, the need for help was clear. His grandmother resisted their supervision.

Scientists are studying one possible reason for this discrepancy: Alzheimer’s disease can impair a person’s ability to recognize their own difficulties. This condition is called anosognosia.

In a study published in Cortex in 2018, researchers examined 35 people with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease. They tested participants’ memory and how accurately they assessed their own performance. A separate task assessed how well participants recognized whether they were controlling the movement of a computer cursor.

A lack of awareness of memory problems was associated with an impaired ability to assess memory performance specifically. Researchers found no equivalent association with judgments about control over the cursor. In other words, awareness of one’s abilities can be selectively impaired.

A relative’s account alone cannot establish whether Vasily’s grandmother has anosognosia. However, the findings help explain why a confident answer may not accurately reflect how well someone is managing a task. They may not recognize mistakes that are apparent to others.

For Vasily, these difficulties carry specific risks. His grandmother has forgotten to turn off the stove. Fortunately, he says, there has been no fire. Leaving meals, medication and trips outside unsupervised has also become impossible.

Caregiving in these circumstances requires ongoing involvement, and caregivers themselves need support. WHO recommends seeking help from other relatives and professionals, taking breaks and looking after one’s own health.

Earlier, Qazinform News Agency reported that two automated blood tests showed promise in detecting Alzheimer’s-related brain changes in adults with Down syndrome.