short term memory loss

My Mother (69) years old fell down a flight of stairs in May 2007.  She was in Neuro ICU for 2 days because of bleeding of the brain at the frontal lobe.  Since then she has had and MRI and everything is clear.  Will beginning stages of Alzheimers show in the brain tissue??  She has problems with short term memory.  Cannot use the computer anymore.  Has problems remembering certain words when she is talking.  Can this just be from the injury, and it will take time to truly heal??  Or is there something else going on she needs to be tested for.  In my observation... taking her shopping... or the computer ... it seems like she takes in the information but it gets all jumbled up and she gets overwhelmed.  I'd appreciate any ideas on further action that can be taken to help her.  Thank you
Sandy

[Abhijeet Deshmukh, MD]

Hello .

I will try to throw some light.

The memory loss does actually fit in the picture of the injury. The frontal lobe has important areas for speech. It will be interesting to know what her initial MRI said.

Now, the initial stages of Alzheimer's disease may not be evident on MRI. A mild atrophy of the cortex can be expected. But it is not necessary that atrophy will occur.

It looks like her abilities of logical thinking and decision making are affected. I would say these are due to the bleed.

An Alzheimer's memory loss will increase in severity slowly. You may get her Neuropsychological assessment done for screening of dementia.

Find out if you have any Dementia Clinic available.

Regards

[scootchu]

I can only say that I have had head trauma in my life and at 40 years old short term memory loss has been a brutal sympton of post concussion syndrome. Your mother sounds like she imparted quite a bit of trauma to her brain if it included bleeding. I can only say as a non-medically trained person that it does take time to get faculties back and sometimes they don't always all come back. Be patient and if for no other reason have her go back to the Dr's for follow-ups for her recent injury.