Bella posted these comments under a different topic, and since I couldn't find the original "When did you notice something wrong" thread, I started a new one. If anyone finds it, please bring it to the top. Thanks. joang
bellaCommentTime14 minutes ago edit delete
JanK I have wondered the same thing about how far back dementia starts to surface before the actual diagnosis is given. Does the person w/ dementia have subtle changes 10-20 yrs before? I was reading a news story on line about how scientists are discovering how we make and hold onto memories. It was a short article--did anyone else read that?
Bella, thinking back, Claude started having changes/symptoms way back in 1991 when he was electrocuted and had to have open heart surgery as a result. They were there but very subtle. He was able to go back to work and retired in 1997. In 1999, he had a minor stroke and was diagnosed in 2002. He later was diagnosed with Parkinson's. I did some research on Lewy Body Dementia and felt he had most of the symptoms. I was going to talk to his neurologist but he passed away before I could get an appt.
I wonder if it is genetic as his father and older brother were diagnosed with "dementia". I don't know at what age they were diagnosed. His middle brother died of a massive heart attack at age 60 and hadn't shown any symptoms by that time.
Art had an episode in 1984-85 where he was totally disconnected from his ability to distinguish right from wrong and was diagnosed and 'cured' with 'detached personality disorder. I don't think he was cured cause he never said he was sorry for destroying our marriage - I felt his sorry was for getting caught.
In January 2004 he was fired from his longest held job (11 years) for violating company rules. He had been a store manager for years but the stress got to him so he went down to a pressman. The company policy was if your were late for work, back from lunch, worked overtime, forget to punch in/out, etc., you have to have an 'exception report' signed by your manager/assistant manager. He was copying one the assistant manager had signed and faxing the copies. He said she told him to do it but when confronted she denied saying that even though the faxed ones were put in the managers box afterwords. I thought it was a part of the companies ploy to get rid of the older employees but now I wonder if he was relapsing - he knew it was wrong but couldn't distinguish.
We have already on another thread brought out the ED problem many showed long before diagnosis.
In 2006 we were at a Workamper job where he had to learn pool care. He was having trouble but I brushed it off that he was not a book learner (bad reading and comprehension) but hands on. His only training was being shown once, then given the written instructions. The manager came to check on him and he had turned the handle to drain the pool. He still claims he didn't do it but there was no one else around. I believe the verbal abuse from the manager in the 3 weeks we had been there contributed to this mental change.
when we arrived back in Vancouver, the next day while I was gone, he was done using the table saw. Somehow he got his hand too close to the blade (guard was missing) and almost cut a finger off (2/3 of the way thru the knuckle). He called me on the phone to tell me. When I got back he was so nonchalant about it - might have been shock although he was very coherent. This is when I started to suspect. The following year is when he started asking again or I would have to repeat and not being able to multitask like he use to be able to do. I felt he was ignoring me, but now know he was not.
Now I wonder if these were early signs not usually associated? No doctor has ever asked me about his history and probably never will. Just little things here and there - warning signs??
Since being on this website, I've wondered if dh's FTD (or whatever it is) started as EOD. Here's why. He was 56 when I started dating him. I was 46. During our dating of about 2 years, we had our problems due to what I know now was abuse. I would dump him, and he would show up at my place of work, literally crying, trying to manipulate me back into the relationship. Once I was riding my bike up a hill, and he showed up in a 3-piece suit, stopped his car, and got out and cried there on the hill. My son also told me after many years that dh used to come to his place of work and cry, over our breaking up. This was a distinguished man, successful in his profession, who behaved like this. Wow. I finally confronted dh on the crying, and he stopped it like turning off a water faucet. The only other time he has cried during our almost 21 year marriage is during a separation, and he cried, saying, "This has got to stop," meaning his abuse of me. Of course, it didn't.
If your dh has FTD is not really early onset. FTD commonly starts in people in their 30s through early 60's. It is normally always early onset in that regard.
My husband can turn on and off the crying at the drop of a hat. He never cried other than when his parents died in the 30 years we have been together. Now he will cry if I tell him he can't do something or don't do something he wants immediately
You bet. My daughter has actually said to him when he is doing one of his crying jags "are you a man or a baby"? He will immediately stop crying and say I'm a man. Drives us nuts sometimes