Hi, I have just joined this forum, and would like some advice please. My mum has just been diagnosed with dementia. Probably vascular but this hasn't been finally confirmed just yet.
Mum is 85 and lives in her own home with Dad who is almost 94 and still functioning very well mentally. Dad is not the most patient man on the planet and insists on correcting mum a lot of the time and then they get into rows, but he does have a real problem because over the past couple of weeks she has had frequent episodes of thinking he is not Dad but her uncle / father / cousin and he can't convince her that he is indeed her husband. She keeps asking him where her husband is and sometimes becomes frightened by this strange person in the house who pretends to be her husband - I think the fear is largely due to him getting angry with her. She calls other family members asking if they know where dad is and it is really difficult to calm her or convince her that Dad is right there and that he is who he says he is. The next day mum will usually recognise him OK and ask him where he was the previous day but this is now happening every other day.
I just wondered if anyone else has experienced a similar thing and could advise us all about how best to handle this one, since just going along with mum's view can't resolve the matter of the 'missing' husband. (We tried getting him to go out and come back in again saying he had returned but on that occasion it did not work.)
Mum is 85 and lives in her own home with Dad who is almost 94 and still functioning very well mentally. Dad is not the most patient man on the planet and insists on correcting mum a lot of the time and then they get into rows, but he does have a real problem because over the past couple of weeks she has had frequent episodes of thinking he is not Dad but her uncle / father / cousin and he can't convince her that he is indeed her husband. She keeps asking him where her husband is and sometimes becomes frightened by this strange person in the house who pretends to be her husband - I think the fear is largely due to him getting angry with her. She calls other family members asking if they know where dad is and it is really difficult to calm her or convince her that Dad is right there and that he is who he says he is. The next day mum will usually recognise him OK and ask him where he was the previous day but this is now happening every other day.
I just wondered if anyone else has experienced a similar thing and could advise us all about how best to handle this one, since just going along with mum's view can't resolve the matter of the 'missing' husband. (We tried getting him to go out and come back in again saying he had returned but on that occasion it did not work.)