Why Alzheimer’s patients cry?

Alzheimer’s is a degenerative disease of the brain; it slowly deteriorates the functioning of your brain.  The result is that you experience significant memory loss, but it happens over time to notice the changes within yourself.  It may start as a feeling like a memory fugue; you forget small/simple things like where you last placed your keys or what day it is, and it may only last a few seconds to a few minutes.  But then it slowly progresses into more significant things like where you live or who your family members are, which could last for several hours.  Once it gets to its most severe, you will struggle with basic activities of daily living like showering, putting on clothes, or going to the bathroom. 

Given the nature of this disease and its progress, it is quite understandable why their mood would be drastically altered.  Increased symptoms of depression are very common for those with progressive Alzheimer’s disease.  Individuals often feel overwhelmed with the change in their cognitive functioning and may struggle to cope with physiological changes they have little to no control over.  They may begin to lose interest in going things they would normally do, not only due to the depression but also perhaps out of fear due to their loss of functioning. 

You may often see individuals having bouts of tearful moments for multiple reasons.  One of the signs of depression is tearfulness.  But also, they could become fearful due to that feeling overwhelmed with the constant unpredictability of forgetting things.  They don’t have control of times when their brain will forget things; they could be at a grocery store and forget how to get home; this would be very frightening and cause them to be tearful from feeling helpless.  They may have bouts of tearfulness out of anger, a common symptom of grief and loss of feelings of anger.  They are grieving over the loss of their “normal” functioning and may become so angry with the situation that they are in that they will be tearful.  It may be challenging to understand where the tearfulness is coming from if the person is having a hard time verbalizing their experiences, but providing compassion and patience can go a long way in helping them during these times.