At the risk of sounding stupid, I’ve noticed my mom’s house smell has changed a lot in the last year and is stronger in her room and bathroom, coincidentally or not, since she has started showing mild dementia symptoms and has been diagnosed with vascular dementia. She feels extremely tired despite standard blood test markers being OK.

The smell could have simple explanations, like she forgets to ventilate the room, or her hygiene is not as good as before, since she has become more avoidant of any discomfort, but we are helping her with the hygiene part at least, the ventilation is harder because she complains about cold, and refuses to leave the room. Also to me, it is a different smell from what would be poor ventilation and from what would be lack of hygiene, but I can’t point out what it is. I'm usually very good detecting when a room has not been ventilated, I just feel I breath worse and can't focus as well, I'm annoying to other people that doesn't want to open the window.

She spends most of the time in bed, her body is telling her to sleep much more than before, and she has become very stubborn about getting out of the house, going to the dentist, etc. Since she is very intelligent and still has the verbal ability to make you believe she will do it as soon as she feels better and that will be soon, the reality is that months are passing by and that is not happening.

I wonder if anyone could recommend an affordable but effective air quality device, mold testing kits (if such a thing exists), or what targeted blood tests can be done. Also, if there are tests to fine grain the diagnosis of vascular dementia, to know if there is accumulation of proteins in the brain, or what is the origin of the issue.

She is 79 years old, perhaps there is nothing to do, but somehow I feel the environment of the house has something toxic in it, I even thought about electromagnetic fields, but I really don’t know where to start.

Edit: We live in Spain, her doctor feedback is that her blood tests are great for her age, and we didn't have much info about the vascular dementia situation somehow has been implied that is normal in her age.

There is an easy and cheap test that is actually accurate. You place Petri dishes with a specific medium in them in the room, open, for an hour. Then you close them and put them in a dark spot for a week. When you next look at them, count the colonies that have formed. 3 or 4 or below is fine. 3 to 6 or 7 you need to wipe the walls with citrus oil cleaner or diluted bleach, deep clean carpets, remove old books and otherwise deep clean the space. More than that, you likely have mold issues in the walls or ceiling or floors. All mold issues come from water sources- small leaks in plumbing, old seals around the edges of bathtubs, ingress from clogged gutters backing up, etc. here’s where you can get the petri dishes- https://immunolytics.com/store/ Don’t bother with the kit or with paying them to interpret results, just count colonies like I outlined above.

We are going through this now. It’s no fun at all. We have the house ripped down to the studs. A couple times the plates saved us, showing there was more mold then we’d thought. We’d rip out some stuff we’d found, run the test, find too many colonies on the plate then dig some more only to find more issues. Finally, we are getting clear plates, and I feel much better.

If it does turn out to be mold and fatigue caused by the mold feel free to contact me as I have been through it and am now on the mend. It’s a long difficult process with only the vague signals you mentioned to guide you.

My grandmother is currently dying from vascular dementia at 80. She sleeps all day. There’s really nothing you can do except keep them comfortable. There is no cure, only treatments for side effects unfortunately.

And yes, she smells weird ;) it’s mostly from change in normal hygiene. No matter how much you help clean them, they will smell different than they used to. And not good-different.

I don’t have specific suggestions for your questions, but that does sound like mold, and the mold could be progressing those symptoms.

Hi - this very much parallels my experience with significant mold exposure. We were able to identify mold using a laboratory test of air sample + swab completed by a certified specialist here in the US. Cost about $500. Highly recommend as the effects on our health have been drastic and long-lasting. Best of luck.

I'm sorry about your mom.

The odor part may be nothing to worry about. When I was a child I noticed an "old lady smell" that many people have. I used to think they had terrible taste in perfume. As my mom got older and I observed her in life, I realized she was starting to smell that way without any effort, and did not before. I don't think she had particularly poor hygiene. I have no idea, but perhaps there is some biological reason for this, that older people produce distinct body odors from younger people.

It's just old people smell.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_person_smell

I'm sorry, dementia is horrible and most likely the major reason for the symptoms. Just remember that dementia patients can also forget to turn off the water and cause a spillage they don't remember, or fall down in the shower and spray the whole room with water, or simply forget where the toilet is and urinate somewhere. But nevertheless if it smells weird you should check it, one can have both dementia and mold in the house.

If you can smell that the house is bad for you then it would be easiest to just get her out of the damn house for one or two weeks, maybe to somewhere on the ocean, and see if her symptoms improve significantly.

Check her Vitamin D / iron / B12 levels and supplement with relevant cofactors. Doctors often don't check it here in Germany.

If she drinks tap water do one of the online water tests which checks both for bateria and lead contamination - both for hot and cold water supply. Contamination can be by old pipes or in the water boiler. If lead in water is high also tell the doctor.

If you have access to thermal imaging camera it is a very quick way to figure out water leaks in the wall or places of bad insulation. Maybe a shingle on the roof has moved and rain has been dripping into the ceiling. I bought one for ~350€ and didn't regret it.

As you mention the bathroom check the silicone sealings around the bathtub and see if they are broken and/or moldy. Maybe water leaks behind the shower because the silicone has a defect. Silicone needs to be relaced every couple of years, just rip it out and apply new silicone it is a DIY job with many youtube videos. Wear mask while you are in the house.

You can DIY hack a around-the-clock humidity/temperature monitoring with esphome/homeassistant so you can compare outdoor air vs. indoor air in several rooms and also calculate dew point temperature to see where/if water condensation in the walls occur. It is quite cheap and wifi-based but a lot of fiddling.

Good luck in these stressful times.

It could be "old person smell"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_person_smell

As another top level comment describes, there are very inexpensive hardware store mold testing kits which are essentially just petri dishes you leave open and then mail in for testing.

Also if it is indeed mold, the source is typically some source of moisture. You want to rule out roof leaks and plumbing leaks, and bear in mind that water is incredibly non intuitive and creative in getting from point a to point b.

Another major source of humidity is the human body. Between sweat and respiration, we emit quite a bit of water. This goes into the air and into the bedding and requires ventilation to dissipate. Tightly sealed under-bed areas prevent the mattress from breathing. You might consider stripping the bedding and lifting up the mattress to see how things look.

Consider the rooms' ventilation system. Are the filters new, are the ducts clean? Hiring a professional to check the HVAC system is good routine maintenance.

A final source of moisture leading to mold to consider is condensation. Anywhere warm air meets a much colder surface leads to liquid water and mold. This can mean cracks and poor insulation in exterior walls during winter, or the air conditioning parts during summer. I've seen this combine with the bed-human moisture where under a bed against an exterior wall in a poorly insulated house was staying cold. The bottom of the mattress was moldy.

Mold is insidious. You often need to get into the mindset of a detective, or hire one, to find it. Good luck.

> At the risk of ...

Any decent person would take that risk, for their mother's health.

At least in the US, there's a fairly large industry built around mold testing & remediation. Laboratories need to be inspected & certified, and you can do your own home air testing and receive the results directly from the lab.

Compared to a family member's health, testing is very cheap.

Vs. if you're testing to make sure the house isn't rotting - that's trickier. Many sorts of mold can be underachievers at releasing spores (which is what the common air tests look for). Or the spores could be released in a wall cavity or something, where air doesn't circulate and carry them to where you're taking samples.

I've no idea what the situation is in Spain.

Changing topic - my mother's mental health & vision were destroyed by an undiagnosed case of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giant_cell_arteritis . America's health care system burned through incredible amounts of money for fancy high-tech scans and tests. It did not bother with having a competent doctor sit down, and really think about what might be causing mom's slowly-worsening symptoms. That would not have been hard - mom was in the very highest-risk demographic for that disease. And after it was too late - my optician was able to diagnose her in seconds, sight unseen, from just my in-passing mention of her eye-related symptoms.

(Yes, I also got the clear feeling that the health care system did not care at all about an elderly woman's declining health);

I would very strongly recommend you get her tested for mycotoxins. Vascular dementia / Alzheimer’s symptoms can come from mold exposure alone (type 3 Alzheimer’s). If you find signs of mold exposure, consider the shoemaker protocol or something like Cellcore to bind the mycotoxins or other similar endotoxins out of the gut using things like Cholestyramine, or other binders.

You can use the Mosaic mycotox test, order it directly to your home and then ship the sample to the lab.

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