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Early Onset Dementia/alzheimers

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menomom

New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Posts: 7
Location: wisconsin
Early Onset Dementia/alzheimers
Posted: 01-15-06 11:11am

I have known my husband now since 1988. Just as we were starting to date, his mom was having some medical issues. Initially they thought it was depression. Her mood changed and she lost her speech. From the time that we started dating to april of 1990, when she passed away, she had gone down hill extremely fast. She was pretty aware of things in the fall of 1988 but couldn't speak and all of 1989 went from that ...To not being able to swallow ,to coming out of the house in just her undergarments, to the nursing home. I don't have any information of any signs earlier than 1988 other than once everything was said and done his dad did say that he figured something was going on as her behavior had changed awhile back. Her personality had changed.

I have noticed some behavior in my husband that resembles his mom's behavior. It's more the facial expressions. When he is watching tv or listening to someone his mouth gapes and sometimes he gets a vacant stare. He is 52 and his mom was 62 when she died. They said it was dementia. I did some research about the disease and charted some of my husbands behavior. I am suspecting that he is heading in that direction. Some of the changes I have noticed is he is much more moody than the first half of our relationship. He does not pay attention and when he relays information it is not the same.

Example....I told him (when we were talking about our son's hockey team) "the other goalie may be traded to a team in ohio. I didn't know there was a junior team in ohio." I heard him on the phone talking to his brother a half hour later and he was giving him information about our son's hockey team. He said to his brother..."the other goalie is going to boston. He is going to college there." I was puzzled as to why he said that.

A couple other conversations we had was a little off the wall......

I was looking out the window last winter. I noticed the snow under the pine tree was all flattened out. Fairly large area too. I asked him..."wow, what do you suppose did that?" he came over and very matter of factly said..."the meter man." I looked at him and questioned..."the meter man???" he said "yea, he lost his papers". I was flabergasted by his answer, plus I wanted to bust out laughing but he was serious. We live in a city and yes the meter man has to go house to house but they don't have "papers" anymore. Within that same week I noticed spots on our entryway rug. I commented to him that I thought they were water but they are not. I wanted to know if he knew what they were. His comment was.."it was when the fire trucks went by." I said "what?" he said "yea, they just went by...Didn't you hear them?" I did but that was 2 streets over and what would that have to do with my rug??? I am afraid to ask anymore questions and I don't drill him on it because he is serious. He is not being sarcastic or funny. I am silently taking notes and am getting more concerned.

Does anyone know of such a thing? There is more but just wanted to throw that out there to see if this is some of the things that go on with early dementia and/or alzheimers.

Thanks.
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menomom

New User, Becoming EHEALTHy
Joined: 12 Jan 2006
Posts: 7
Location: wisconsin

Posted: 02-23-06 12:19pm

Adding to my above observations....

Are these additional signs?

My husband will be so absorbed in one little event that he has to tell everybody he talks to for the next few days. I am not talking a sporting event or a marriage or birth. But for example...

He visited his dad in the nursing home and met a distant cousin of his dad's. When he got home he called my daughter (his step-daughter..Not that it matters) and went into the whole family tree thing on the phone. He told both of my sons and he had the family tree thing out when I got home from work and started in telling me. Just calls up and out of the blue starts in on his story......Am I making a big deal out of it?

Another thing is that he does repeat telling me things he just told me 5 minutes ago and it doesn't trigger that he just told me. I never correct him but he says it over exactly like the first time and it doesn't come to him that he already said it.

When I see him listen to someone it looks like he struggles to understand.
It's really hard to explain because there is so much more.

Just wondering if I should put some pressure on him to visit a doctor or I am being too critical.
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