Aging Parents & Adult Children: What's Happening and How to Recognize It

When someone close to us changes, we tend to put it down to "age" or "personality." But certain changes are driven by specific mental disorders — and knowing the difference matters.

What actually changes a person

A mentally healthy person retains the ability to inhibit impulses and apply critical judgement to their own actions. When that capacity breaks down — due to illness, not ill will — behaviour can become unrecognisable. Dr. Saулitis identifies several groups of disorders that produce this kind of change:

• Organic brain damage — dementia, cerebrovascular changes, long-term effects of alcohol dependence. The brain loses its braking function: the person acts before any critical evaluation is possible.
• Manic and psychotic states — as the episode escalates beyond hypomania, habitual inhibitions weaken, and various behavioural deviations may emerge.
• Genetically determined disorders with progressive personality deterioration — leading to incongruent drives and bizarre, out-of-character behaviour.

How to recognise the changes

Adult children often notice the shift before the parent does. Signs worth paying attention to:

• The person acts in ways that clearly contradict their lifelong values and character
• They cannot explain the impulse, or are unaware that anything inappropriate happened
• Behaviour is impulsive — no forethought, no remorse afterwards
• Unusual preoccupations or eccentricities appear that were entirely foreign to this person before

Dr. Saулitis offers a telling example: a respected professor with dementia, hospitalised on a neurology ward, would approach a nurse with wholly inappropriate proposals — in a courteous, cultured tone of voice. Not moral corruption. Illness.

The core insight: the disorder, not the person

The crucial distinction is this: it is not the person behaving this way — it is the disorder. When the brain's functioning is impaired, a person will behave in certain ways given certain circumstances. That shift in perspective changes everything about how a family understands what is happening — and how they respond.

No one is immune to mental illness. Mental health is not a permanent state. Holding that truth makes it easier for families to let go of shame and reach out for professional help while there is still time.