hi, my male partner of 9 years was diagnosed with eoad in october of 2008 at the age of 57 - he is now 59. I'm a 58 year old woman. He kept his diagnosis secret form me - he had always been forgetful, so I just thought he was the same. In 11/2009, I noticed definite changes and he told me. He had stopped taken his Aricept which I immediately got him back on - exactly 4 weeks later he improved dramatically. I'm so afraid of it no longer working though.
Welcome to this wonderful site, but sorry you need us. You can vent, ask questions about anything and sometimes just laugh. Everyone here will do their best to help if they can. My husband was diagnosed in Aug. 2008 at the age of 58 with FTD (frontotemporal dementia). He is on aricept and namenda to hopefully slow down the inevitable progression of this horrible disease. I am 51 years old.
Welcome to my website. If you have seen improvement, it is most likely that he has stabilized, and will remain so until...............unfortunately no one can accurately predict that. We all struggle with the effectiveness of the medications. They stabilize, decline, stabilize, decline. We cannot know if they would have declined more steadily without the medication.
You have come to a place of comfort for spouses/partners who are trying to cope with the Alzheimer's/dementia of their husband/wife/partner. The issues we face in dealing with a spouse/partner with this disease are so different from the issues faced by children and grandchildren caregivers. We discuss all of those issues here - loss of intimacy; social contact; conversation; anger; resentment; stress; and pain of living with the stranger that Alzheimer's Disease has put in place of our beloved spouse/partner.
The message boards are only part of this website. Please be sure to log onto the home page - www.thealzheimerspouse.com - and read all of the resources on the left side. I recommend starting with "Newly Diagnosed/New Member" and "Understanding the Dementia Experience". There are 4 sections for EOAD members - two of which focus on the young teens whose parents have EOAD (early onset AD). There is a great section on informative videos, and another excellent resource - Early Onset Dementia - A Practical Guide. You can go to the top of this page, click on "search", and type in EOAD, making sure the "topic" circle is filled in. All of the EOAD discussions will come up - there are about a dozen of them.
Do not miss the "previous blog" section. It is there you will find a huge array of topics with which you can relate. There is a "search" feature on the home page that allows you to look up different topics that may have been explored in a previous blog. Log onto the home page daily for new blogs; news updates; important information.