My daughter was diagnosed with dementia – she’s only 19.

Health

as if Emily Lefroy

May 19, 2023 | 8:14 p.m

When Gianna Cabo started experiencing memory lapses and started withdrawing from family and friends, her mother thought it was prolonged COVID — definitely not dementia.

“I felt like someone punched me in the heart. I sat there in shock,” said Cabot mother Rebecca Robertson, 50. He told SWNS.. “I thought this can’t be true, she’s only 19. I never thought it could be dementia – not in my wildest dreams.

Robertson, of McKinney, Texas, noticed something amiss in September 2020 when her bright and feisty daughter left the classroom and couldn’t keep up.

Cabo has had a rough year. In the year In 2019, she and her mother were in a car accident that left Robertson with a severe concussion and compressed discs in her neck.

Then in June 2020, Cabo was hit by the corona virus.

Months later, she struggled with memory loss and her ability to do simple tasks like opening a can.

When Cabot started withdrawing from her friends, stopped doing her homework, and started sleeping when she got home, Robertson decided to seek medical help.

“As the weeks went by, she started having more problems at school. The answer to any question started to be ‘I don’t remember.'” a frustrated Robertson recalled. “When asked why she didn’t do her homework, she says she doesn’t remember.”

Mom suspected her daughter might be suffering from depression as a result of the outbreak, and was prescribed an antidepressant in June 2021.

Cabo also began seeing a counselor, but her condition stalled.

“Suddenly one of her teachers’ star students [but] Now when she’s in the room, she’ll be in la-la-land and just stare out the window,'” Robertson recalled. “She was becoming more and more detached and apathetic. She said, ‘I just feel lost.'”

Robertson said Cabot’s memory loss manifested itself during her high school graduation. Other students excitedly talk about their future, while the girl struggles to keep up.

“She had tearful eyes,” she said sadly. “Shouldn’t I be curious?’ she asked me. But she felt nothing.

Robertson took the teenager to a neurologist in November 2022, and after a series of medical tests, doctors found no electrical activity in Cabo’s right central lobe.

She was diagnosed with dementia.

Cabo, now 20, can’t recall happy childhood memories, Robertson said.

“I asked her what was the happiest moment of your life, and she looked confused and said, ‘I don’t remember,’” she said.

At one point, during Cabo’s breakdown, she took all the childhood photos in her room. When her mother asked her why, she explained, “She couldn’t remember them being taken.”

Robertson said her daughter feels like she’s “slipping away” — and no one knows what to do.

“I am praying that there is a treatment that can give me hope,” said the distraught mother. “Don’t laugh anymore. She doesn’t get out of bed. No matter what you ask her, day or night, she says, ‘I don’t remember.’

“The sad thing is that it didn’t bother Gia,” she continued. “There’s no emotion there. nothing else. She is 100% careless.

As of 2011 Initiation of childhood dementiaChildhood dementia has been linked to progressive brain damage and more than 70 rare genetic diseases.

There is no cure, but treatment options include medication, therapy, and nutritional services.