Starting a new journey in our lives

[weeyin]

Hello everyone. My wife aged 61 has been diagnosed with vascular dementia. We're told its is in an early stage. I wanted to introduce this as starting a new adventure in our lives but I don't know if that's appropriate. I'm trying to educate myself about what this means for us and particularly me as I've been told I'm now a carer. We have just had a new alzheimers facility opened and had a recent visit from them to our home where they pointed out TP to me so here I am. I've never been on a forum before and although I'm very computer literate my Alz journey has started with me spending 90mins or so trying to find the New Post button to introduce myself. I hope this appears in the correct place.

From what I've read on the pages in TP during my 90mins of searching I think you are going to be good for us. My own immediate issue, softer word than problem, is how to communicate with my wife . She is constantly complaining about what I say and how I say it. I've tried various tones of voice and rewording what I say but as yet haven't found the solution. I'm learning, slowly mind you, not to bite back when she asks for the same information 3 times in 5 minutes but sometimes I fail and growl at her which is obviously not a great help. I know this is the start of a download slope which I hope to be a shallow one so deterioration is not rapid but I guess we don't have a lot of control over this. So TP I hope to learn from your experiences and its nice to have someone out there to share with. Thanks for being there one and all

Sent from my GT-P5210 using Talking Point mobile app

 

[jeany123]

Hello Weeyin and welcome to Talking Point you will get lots of good advice on here, this link has been very helpful to me and it might be to you as well


http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/show...ionate-Communication-with-the-Memory-Impaired


Best wishes, Jeany

 

[BeckyJan]

Hello and welcome to Talking Point.
You have made your first step with us and introduced yourself here in the Welcome section. I am sorry you need to be here and it is indeed a new journey. I am sure you will get support and help from TP when needed.

When you are ready you will perhaps want to start a thread in the I have a partner with dementia section here:
http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/forumdisplay.php?69-I-have-a-partner-with-dementia

I am sure as you browse through all the different forums you will soon find your way around.
Best wishes

 

[Grannie G]

Hello weeyin

Welcome from me too.

I admire how positive you are trying to be and you do well to find out as much as you can about coping strategies.

I found through painful experience there was no point trying to change my husband, the only person who could adapt to the illness was me.

I made plenty of mistakes along the way , just because everyone is so different and well meaning advice does`t always work.

However Talking Point has always been a lifeline.

We had a community psychiatric nurse [CPN] who said he learnt more form Talking Point in two weeks than he had learnt in years as a practitioner.

Compassionate Communication is a tall order and not applicable to everyone but a very good guide. I hope it helps.

 

[CollegeGirl]

Hello weeyin and a warm welcome to Talking Point, although I'm very sorry to hear about your wife's diagnosis, especially at the relatively young age of 61. I'm sure you'll receive lots of helpful advice and support here, as I do.

I'm sorry that I don't have the answer to your query about communicating with your wife, as we have the same problem with my mam. It doesn't seem to matter what we say or how we say it, she generally responds negatively or aggressively. She also often completely misinterprets what we've said, and we're fairly sure that it's not a hearing problem but is a facet of her illness.

Don't be too hard on yourself if you sometimes growl! Most of us do that sometimes - none of us is a saint after all.