My Mom was diagnosed with ALS in Dec 05 at the age of 50. She began with mostly bulbar symptoms and now has no use of her left hand, speech is gone, has a peg tube, breathing capacity reduced to 38 percent, significant weight loss, and recent weakness in her left leg. The newest issue has been personality changes and mood swings, which her neurologist indicated at the last ALS clinic as dementia. She is mostly herself, just gets very adamant about things she wants at times, controlling and cries when she doesn't get what she wants. She can get very angry and often says hurtful things and later realizes what she has done and apologizes. This is very hard on all of us - sometimes harder than the physical symptoms. It is difficult because her progression is so quick and we want to cherish our time with her, but those times together are getting increasingly difficult.
I'd appreciate any advice from others who have experienced anything similar.