Hi Lesley,
My mother was first diagnosed with foot drop and dementia - in Dec 2005. Since then she started having speech and swallowing problems, and ALS was diagnosed Dec 2006. She doesn't seem to have any long, or short, term memory loss BUT she did (you can no longer understand her speech) have trouble finding a correct word (she would point to a table and not know what to call it, or call it a sofa). Frontal Temporal Dementia has two areas - executive function (which is word finding, planning, organizing) or lack of inhibitions. Mom's checkbook was a diasaster - its amazing she managed to pay her bills. Between the trouble with finding a correct word (not always) and her "accounting" system, I think she may have the executive part of Frontal Temporal Dementia, but not the "typical" dementia which is memory loss.
She also has emotional liability - she will start crying for no known reason. I will ask if anything is wrong, and she will say no. This is so disturbing to me - I hate to see my mom cry, and I am not sure what to do. She is on a low dose of paxol, not sure if I should see if we can try something else, or if we should try a higher dose.
Does anyone have any ideas? Actually, she doesn't have a lot of crying episodes, but one a day is too many for me. I don't want to overmedicate, it seems like such a delicate balance. It's hard to switch antidepressants, because it takes them a while to work.