Daughterhood The Podcast: For Caregivers
Oct 8, 2026 · 46 min · 10 segments
The early signs of dementia are easy to dismiss: mail piling up, repeated purchases, getting lost on familiar routes. Dementia is not just memory loss, and families who spot the changes early can…
Rosanne CorcoranHost
Nicole, your book, Diagnosis Dementia, really captures both the emotional and practical realities family face from that first moment something feels off to navigating everything that comes next.
What do you think people most underestimate about that early stage, and what felt most overwhelming for you personally?
For me, it was just kind of a, a slow roll into the unknown, and then it definitely got overwhelming.
We-- I call them the that's weird moments, the that's weird stuff that mom was do- would do, and I just was like, "Whatever," and, you know, I initially probably thought, "Oh, it's old age," or, "She's d-" you know, I just haven't been around her in a while 'cause we lived, uh, on opposite coasts.
And, you know, I talked to her on the phone, and I would see her every, you know, a couple times a year maybe.
But so some people, it's just you miss them because you don't-- I didn't know anything about dementia.
And then other people, they know something's off if they live closer, but they're, they're in denial.
You know, for different people, it, it's different things, but I was just completely clueless.
Well, when you say they miss the signs, what kind of signs are you talking about?
So initially it might be, oh, the mail is piling up, or, wow, they're getting a, a lot of, uh, requests for donations.
W- I wonder why that is [chuckles] 'cause they write one or two checks and then, and then the, the email list gets passed around.
Like, my mom would go to the grocery store and just buy the exact same thing every time, regardless of whether she was out of it or not, because it was routine for her.
So she had 15 boxes of Ritz crackers and five things of blueberries and six things of lettuce.
And so, um, they just don't register the, the normal daily activities or cooking, planning, financial management, and these are the instrumental activities of daily living, right? The, the higher cognitive load stuff that starts to go first, and then, then it kind of deteriorates from there.
Nicole, your book, Diagnosis Dementia, really captures both the emotional and practical realities family face from that first moment something feels off to navigating everything that comes next.
What do you think people most underestimate about that early stage, and what felt most overwhelming for you personally?
For me, it was just kind of a, a slow roll into the unknown, and then it definitely got overwhelming.
We-- I call them the that's weird moments, the that's weird stuff that mom was do- would do, and I just was like, "Whatever," and, you know, I initially probably thought, "Oh, it's old age," or, "She's d-" you know, I just haven't been around her in a while 'cause we lived, uh, on opposite coasts.
And, you know, I talked to her on the phone, and I would see her every, you know, a couple times a year maybe.
But so some people, it's just you miss them because you don't-- I didn't know anything about dementia.
And then other people, they know something's off if they live closer, but they're, they're in denial.
You know, for different people, it, it's different things, but I was just completely clueless.
Well, when you say they miss the signs, what kind of signs are you talking about?
So initially it might be, oh, the mail is piling up, or, wow, they're getting a, a lot of, uh, requests for donations.
W- I wonder why that is [chuckles] 'cause they write one or two checks and then, and then the, the email list gets passed around.
Like, my mom would go to the grocery store and just buy the exact same thing every time, regardless of whether she was out of it or not, because it was routine for her.
So she had 15 boxes of Ritz crackers and five things of blueberries and six things of lettuce.
And so, um, they just don't register the, the normal daily activities or cooking, planning, financial management, and these are the instrumental activities of daily living, right? The, the higher cognitive load stuff that starts to go first, and then, then it kind of deteriorates from there.
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