Wife recently diagnosed with Dementia

[PSFPrince]

Hi, I'm Pete.
My wife has recently been diagnosed with early stage dementia. She struggles with short term memory and repeats herself very often. She is aware of this, gets furstrated, worried and is concerned she will become burden on me. I'd like to try to understand the best approach for us to deal with this early stage from people with similar experiences. At present when she repeats stuff we all treat it as if it is a new conversation, but should we point out that she had already said it. We are quite open about it all but it is upsetting to see and deal with for both of us.

Thanks in advance

Pete

 

[Kevinl]

Hello and welcome first of all, and in a word no is the answer to you asking should you point it out to her. My vote anyway.
Pointing it out can lead to confrontation and for me at any rate that isn't the solution, something over 10 years on the site her wife and mum both got AZ and I could have fought a lot of battle but you will always lose the war, AZ doesn't take any prisoners and carers are just colateral damage in the process. K

 

[SeaSwallow]

Hello and welcome to the forum @PSFPrince It really is best not to remind a person with dementia if they have forgotten something or if they repeat themselves, it just upsets them.

I am wondering if the attached would help you - it is not always easy to follow but I definitely have found it useful when my husband was first diagnosed.

Compassionate Communication with the Memory Impaired

The following piece was posted a while ago on DSF and made a big impression on me. It is something I have referred to time after time and tried hard to follow. We have many new members who may not have seen it before. Yesterday I posted it on another Thread but thought it might be helpful if...

forum.alzheimers.org.uk

 

[Debz5564]

hi, welcome to this site which has lots of advise, i personally have learnt the hard way. i used to explain to my hubby, we have had this conversation before, remember such and such a thing which at the beginning he did remember bits of what we was talking about and i thought i was helping to remind him of things.
i still do it now as it is really hard not to but on a couple of occasions it has caused a row which i know i can not win, its so hard as we are human and sometimes react quickly without really thinking first.
i feel i can no longer be myself with my hubby if i have to think before speaking so i try to remind him if it is something nice now and stop if there is any frustration from him which up to now is rare, he normally just admits he doesn't remember and asks questions.

 

[PSFPrince]

Thank you everyone, I really appreciate your insight, especially the link from SeaSwallow, it was very useful and informative. It will certainly help me as my wife's illness develops.

 

[jay6]

Hello and welcome first of all, and in a word no is the answer to you asking should you point it out to her. My vote anyway.
Pointing it out can lead to confrontation and for me at any rate that isn't the solution, something over 10 years on the site her wife and mum both got AZ and I could have fought a lot of battle but you will always lose the war, AZ doesn't take any prisoners and carers are just colateral damage in the process. K

Well put Kevin. They will never be wrong and you'll get accused of 'picking on them'