My daughter was recognized with dementia — she’s solely 19

Health

By Emily Lefroy

Might 19, 2023 | 8:14pm

When Gianna Cabo started experiencing reminiscence lapses and withdrawing from household and pals, her mother thought it was long COVID — definitely not dementia.

“I felt like somebody had simply punched me in my coronary heart. I sat there shocked,” Cabo’s mom, Rebecca Robertson, 50, told SWNS. “I believed this may’t be true, she’s solely 19. I by no means thought it might be dementia — not in my wildest desires.”

Robertson, from McKinney, Texas, seen one thing was fallacious along with her shiny and bubbly daughter in September 2020, when she went from head of the category to unable to maintain up.

Cabo had had a tough yr. In 2019, she and her mom had been concerned in a automobile crash that left Robertson with a extreme concussion and compressed discs in her neck.

Then, in June 2020, Cabo was stricken with the coronavirus.

Months later, she struggled with reminiscence loss and the power to carry out easy duties, like working a can opener.

When Cabo began to withdraw from her pals, stopped finishing her homework, and commenced falling asleep as quickly as she bought residence, Robertson determined to hunt medical assist.

“Because the weeks glided by, she began having extra issues in class. The reply to any query began to be, ‘I don’t keep in mind,’” the distraught Robertson recalled. “If she was requested why she hadn’t accomplished her homework, she would say she didn’t keep in mind.”

The mother thought her daughter might be affected by mental stress due to the pandemicand he or she was prescribed antidepressants in June 2021.

Cabo additionally began seeing a counselor, however her situation continued to nosedive.

“All of a sudden I began getting calls from her academics saying, ‘She’s considered one of our star college students (however) now when she’s in school, she’s in la-la-land and simply stares blankly out the window,’” Robertson remembered. “She was changing into an increasing number of indifferent and apathetic. She mentioned, ‘I simply really feel misplaced.’”

Robertson mentioned the severity of Cabo’s reminiscence loss offered itself throughout her highschool commencement. Different college students excitedly mentioned their futures whereas her daughter struggled to maintain up.

“She simply had eyes stuffed with tears,” she mentioned sadly. “She requested me, ‘Aren’t I speculated to be excited?’ However she felt nothing.”

Robertson took the teenager to see a neurologist in November 2022, and after working a sequence of medical assessments, medical doctors found no electrical exercise in Cabo’s proper central lobe.

She was recognized with dementia.

Now Cabo, 20, can’t keep in mind her blissful childhood reminiscences, Robertson mentioned.

“I requested her what was the happiest second of your life, and he or she simply regarded confused and mentioned, ‘I don’t keep in mind,’” she recounted.

At one level, throughout Cabo’s deterioration, she took down all of her childhood pictures in her room. When her mother requested why, she defined “she couldn’t keep in mind them being taken.”

Robertson admits she seems like her daughter is “slipping away” — and no one is aware of what to do.

“I simply pray there’s a therapy on the market that can provide me some hope,” the anguished mother mentioned. “She doesn’t chortle anymore. She doesn’t get away from bed. No matter you ask her, any time of the day or evening, she simply says, ‘I don’t keep in mind.’”

“The saddest half is it doesn’t hassle Gianna,” she continued. “There’s no emotion there. None. She’s 100% apathetic.”

In line with the Childhood Dementia Initiativechildhood dementia outcomes from progressive brain damage and has been linked to over 70 uncommon genetic issues.

There isn’t any treatment, however therapy choices embody treatment, remedy, and diet companies.