Don’t know what to do!!!!

[Bethb265]

Hello, I feel I’m cracking up! My husband was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s May 2019, his deterioration during lockdown has been immense!
I had a phone appointment with a new Consultant last week who felt Michael possibly had frontotemporal dementia.
Anyway , his ability to process any information or understand any instructions has virtually gone. This morning it has taken 25 minutes to get him into the bathroom to shower. I tell him what needs to happen, he says yes then asks again and again and again! After numerous attempts to explain and my stress levels are off the scale, he says why are you getting angry and I was going to have a shower!!!!
This is just one example of what is an ongoing scene throughout the day. Any ideas/ suggestions would be much appreciated. Beth

 

[Sarasa]

Hi @Bethb265 an welcome to Dementia Talking Point. I'm sure others who have hands on experience of helping people with dementia with personal care will be along with their tips shortly, but in the meantime you might find this thread Compassionate Communication with the Memory Impaired useful. Don't beat yourself up if you don't always manage to do what it suggests. I found it very tricky when trying to help my mum, who has vascular dementia, with what the care home manager and I suspect is a strong frontotemporal lobe component, but when I did manage it, it did help.
Dementia Talking Point is a very supportive place to be and you'll get loads of help and advice here. You may find using the the search bar to look for threads on topics you are interested in useful too.

 

[Louise7]

Welcome from me too @Bethb265 As @Sarasa has said, you'll find lots of friendly advice and support here. It may be that helping/showing your husband what to do might be more productive than explaining, and this factsheet contains some good tips about helping someone with washing/bathing which might be useful: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/get-support/daily-living/washing-and-bathing

 

[canary]

My OH is losing the ability to perform tasks and cannot follow instruction. I have found that telling him is useless - I have to show him. I have had problems with OH showering too because he could not remember the sequance, so I hadd to gradually take over the task. I started off with getting the shower the right temperature and then offering to wash his back and his legs (which he had trouble reaching) and from there I gradually extended the areas until I was doing all of it. He now actually has carers coming in to do this.

 

[Bethb265]

Hi @Bethb265 an welcome to Dementia Talking Point. I'm sure others who have hands on experience of helping people with dementia with personal care will be along with their tips shortly, but in the meantime you might find this thread Compassionate Communication with the Memory Impaired useful. Don't beat yourself up if you don't always manage to do what it suggests. I found it very tricky when trying to help my mum, who has vascular dementia, with what the care home manager and I suspect is a strong frontotemporal lobe component, but when I did manage it, it did help.
Dementia Talking Point is a very supportive place to be and you'll get loads of help and advice here. You may find using the the search bar to look for threads on topics you are interested in useful too.

Thank you for getting back to me and thank you for the tips, very much appreciated

 

[Bethb265]

Welcome from me too @Bethb265 As @Sarasa has said, you'll find lots of friendly advice and support here. It may be that helping/showing your husband what to do might be more productive than explaining, and this factsheet contains some good tips about helping someone with washing/bathing which might be useful: https://www.alzheimers.org.uk/get-support/daily-living/washing-and-bathing

Thank you, will go to the link ?