Please accept my apologies if this comes out as verbal diarrhoea, I had intended talking to the doctor today but I haven't been able to get an appointment and I don't know where else to go.
My husband is 58 and I think he is showing signs of dementia. I managed to convince him to go to the doctors but he passed the initial test that they do and so said they weren't going to refer him to the memory clinic, they did send him for an MRI scan which didn't show anything up.
I started to notice little things about 2 years ago, he started forgetting conversations that we'd had and kept forgetting how to get to places which led to him loosing confidence in driving. I am now at a point where other members of my family have noticed. We don't have conversations anymore, he spends all evening asking me what shift I am doing the next day, what time do i finish, what time do i start. He has worked as an electrician since he left school at 16 but has been forced to stop because he can't understand diagrams that he is given, he sees the pictures but he can't make sense of what they mean. He struggles to follow the satnav now and often asks me if I will drive because he doesn't know the way. There are a lot of things that I notice that seem really silly but I know its not like him, he drove through a carpark in 1st gear and didn't notice until I mentioned it, reacting weirdly to situations, showing little concern or not getting excited. We have recently had a couple of incidents where he turns very aggressive suddenly, most recently he went for a group of boys who were misbehaving outside my workplace, he grabbed one boy by the throat which resulted in a visit from the police. He has also had a couple of incidents where he either gets very disorientated or confused at home or he completely over reacts to things eg I was late home from work one night last week and he accused me of being with someone else.
I am really struggling with the way things are with at him at the moment, I feel like walking away from everything but then I feel guilty because I don't think he would cope on his own and I can't leave my children to deal with it. Has anyone else had a similar experience? Does it sound like some kind of dementia or am I just over thinking it? He is diabetic, has had 2 strokes and his Dad has got Alzheimers which had led to him being sectioned. Any advice or ideas of support would be very gratefully received.
My husband is 58 and I think he is showing signs of dementia. I managed to convince him to go to the doctors but he passed the initial test that they do and so said they weren't going to refer him to the memory clinic, they did send him for an MRI scan which didn't show anything up.
I started to notice little things about 2 years ago, he started forgetting conversations that we'd had and kept forgetting how to get to places which led to him loosing confidence in driving. I am now at a point where other members of my family have noticed. We don't have conversations anymore, he spends all evening asking me what shift I am doing the next day, what time do i finish, what time do i start. He has worked as an electrician since he left school at 16 but has been forced to stop because he can't understand diagrams that he is given, he sees the pictures but he can't make sense of what they mean. He struggles to follow the satnav now and often asks me if I will drive because he doesn't know the way. There are a lot of things that I notice that seem really silly but I know its not like him, he drove through a carpark in 1st gear and didn't notice until I mentioned it, reacting weirdly to situations, showing little concern or not getting excited. We have recently had a couple of incidents where he turns very aggressive suddenly, most recently he went for a group of boys who were misbehaving outside my workplace, he grabbed one boy by the throat which resulted in a visit from the police. He has also had a couple of incidents where he either gets very disorientated or confused at home or he completely over reacts to things eg I was late home from work one night last week and he accused me of being with someone else.
I am really struggling with the way things are with at him at the moment, I feel like walking away from everything but then I feel guilty because I don't think he would cope on his own and I can't leave my children to deal with it. Has anyone else had a similar experience? Does it sound like some kind of dementia or am I just over thinking it? He is diabetic, has had 2 strokes and his Dad has got Alzheimers which had led to him being sectioned. Any advice or ideas of support would be very gratefully received.