Hello Everyone,
It is so nice to find message boards where peopel will know how we are feeling.
My Father-in-law has suffered from vascular (mini strokes caused) dementia for the last 5 or more years. We blamed most of the strange happenings on him and thought he had stressed my mother-in-law out. However, 18 months ago we realised it was more than that and after a series of events, she was diagnosed with Alzheimers.
We are lucky in that she was prescibed Aricept and it really worked for her. Within 2 months her scores on the MMSE had risen from 18/30 to 24/30 and have been around 22 to 24 since starting the medication.
The last couple of months we have noticed some deterioration in her condition. She appears very confused at times (I am sure you will all know what i mean when I say she "looks confused, as if she doesnt quite know how to put information together, and you can see the confusion in her eyes".
The only thing is, she does remember she has been told she has Alzheimers, which sometimes makes me question the diagnosis myself. She is insistant there is nothing wrong with her, even though she can't leave the house alone as she cannot remember her address, and has no idea of her phone number, despite having lived at this address for over 4 years. She thinks this is normal.
She can no longer cook a meal for them, she doesnt know where to start. She never knows what month we are in, or what day it is and has to keep our phone number written next to the phone (we have had the same number for years and years).
She often threatens to stop taking her Aricept, and it scares me how bad she would be if she did just stop.
It has helped finding this forum, and having read many of the posts I have already found some useful hints in how to deal with things.
One issue we have is her getting up at night and trying to get out of the apartment they live in (sheltered retirement apartment). Her husband manages to get her back to bed most of the time, but sometimes he cannot deal with her, resulting in him getting angry and frustrated himself, which in itself is part of his dementia (anger issues),
Any advice would be appreciated. And thank you all for reading our story.
It is so nice to find message boards where peopel will know how we are feeling.
My Father-in-law has suffered from vascular (mini strokes caused) dementia for the last 5 or more years. We blamed most of the strange happenings on him and thought he had stressed my mother-in-law out. However, 18 months ago we realised it was more than that and after a series of events, she was diagnosed with Alzheimers.
We are lucky in that she was prescibed Aricept and it really worked for her. Within 2 months her scores on the MMSE had risen from 18/30 to 24/30 and have been around 22 to 24 since starting the medication.
The last couple of months we have noticed some deterioration in her condition. She appears very confused at times (I am sure you will all know what i mean when I say she "looks confused, as if she doesnt quite know how to put information together, and you can see the confusion in her eyes".
The only thing is, she does remember she has been told she has Alzheimers, which sometimes makes me question the diagnosis myself. She is insistant there is nothing wrong with her, even though she can't leave the house alone as she cannot remember her address, and has no idea of her phone number, despite having lived at this address for over 4 years. She thinks this is normal.
She can no longer cook a meal for them, she doesnt know where to start. She never knows what month we are in, or what day it is and has to keep our phone number written next to the phone (we have had the same number for years and years).
She often threatens to stop taking her Aricept, and it scares me how bad she would be if she did just stop.
It has helped finding this forum, and having read many of the posts I have already found some useful hints in how to deal with things.
One issue we have is her getting up at night and trying to get out of the apartment they live in (sheltered retirement apartment). Her husband manages to get her back to bed most of the time, but sometimes he cannot deal with her, resulting in him getting angry and frustrated himself, which in itself is part of his dementia (anger issues),
Any advice would be appreciated. And thank you all for reading our story.