Cathie Woloshen
In late September of 2001, my wife had her gall bladder removed after it burst. She spent 5 days in the hospital because of severe sepsis. (Sepsis and Surgery) In 2002 she complained to her PCP of memory problems and was prescribed Buspar.
Over the next several years her memory problems continued until she was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 2006 at the age of 57. I took her to Henry Ford, Beaumont, and Mayo Clinic – all with the same diagnosis. We never mentioned the sepsis – I had forgotten about it and even if I remembered I would not have considered it relevant.
Since the surgery happened at local hospital it was not in the records of the other hospitals. Recently her sister, who is a home care RN, had a patient about the same age with the same diagnosis of Alzheimer’s. The patient’s husband commented to my wife’s sister that his wife’s memory problems seemed to start after she was in the hospital and had sepsis. Coincidentally, the Detroit Free Press has two separate articles, which revealed the association between sepsis and dementia. A recent (March 2015) Alzheimer’s research paper out of the U.K. made this same association (sepsis induced brain inflammation) as the cause of Alzheimer’s.
Source: by Jeff Woloshen (Cathie's husband)
