The house is locked up tight. No open doors, no open windows. I didn't mind during the Winter, but this is crazy. Today is a very nice day. It won't get too hot, but we didn't cool the place off during the morning.
No open doors, no open windows.
And he closes the house up tight before he goes to bed at 9. I re-open at least one door until I go to bed at 11.
Are any of you experiencing this? Did you experience it at an earlier stage?
So far I've got a bunch of weirdness that I am pretty sure is the dementia. Locking the house up. Over-watering the plants until they die. Trying to over-feed the birds (doesn't work all that well because they won't eat themselves to death the way the plants do).
That was my problem last year. No open doors or windows; he'd shut them when he walked into the room. We have lots of windows, no a.c., but he was convinced that a narrow 2" at the bottom of one window was enough. I didn't really think of it as AZ, but now realize it was, most likely. And he always shut his room door..
Now this year he's fine, windows open, doors open, but he's decided to supervise my painting our bulkhead (the metal doors that open into the cellar). I do not wish to do it today. He wishes me to do it today. But so far I've diverted him onto other tasks!
My husband went through a phase where evey door always had to be locked. He also had to lock both the gates in the back yard with padlocks. He kept losing the keys so was alwyas buying more padlocks, then there were too many keys and he didn't know which went to which. At that time he told me that we had to keep everything locked up because of the insurance. He could not get that whole thought out of his head. I can't even begin to count the number of times he locked me out of the house because of that.
They can get ideas that become absolutes to them and they can't be budged around them. The good news is that those phases/ideas evenutally pass.
My DH thinks we should close all the windows and doors before we go to bed. Doesn't matter how hot it is. A couple of days ago it was still 82 in the motorhome, but he wanted to close it up. He really doesn't like the breeze blowing through, either. When I got him to wait a bit he went a put on a heavy robe - said he was cold. He is also really distrubed by the sound of the air conditioning - this could be a long summer!
I would think its called obsessive-compulsive disorder. they become obsessed about one particular thing for a while then another. mine only closed doors for a while, but became so super obsessive about having his shoes on:) that even today you cant take his shoes off even to sleep. i have come to terms with this one, and it was so hard to do, just let him get into bed and cover him up except for the feet with the shoes on. needless to say he got shoes i could wash OFTEN and i usually would put a houseshoe type on his feet in the house so i could sneak them off to wash. gosh that was a hard time. now i dont mind it at all, as i think its better he does have them on when he goes across the marble floors in the bathroom at nite. isnt this absurd? ha. then the other one he has even today is he wants to wear a jacket that zips. up to the neck, once its zipped dont even try to unzip it.:) he has mellowed out now and today hes not wearing one due to the heat, but as he stays cold too i just givehim a jacket. zip/zip/zip//incredible the obsessions they can have...any body else have a particular one going?? divvi::)
My husband also is really obsessed with having the windows and doors shut and locked. He always thinks kids are running around and might steal his "few dollars". We live in an over 55 community so there's definitely no kids running around. If his razor blades aren't shaving right, it's because "those kids messed with them"
I brought it up because my daughter tells me that her father-in-law in Honduras locks the house up tight in the extremely hot weather they have. He came to the US recently for eye surgery and I got to see him because he and his oldest son came out to visit. When he left I warned my daughter that he has dementia. I just plain saw the signs.
Both my daughter and son-in-law had already figured it out. But with both of these men locking the house up tight, I was wondering if it was common.
So here we have another symptom you never see on the lists, like the trailing way behind in stores. We ought to make our own list.
By the way, my husband now will only wear zip sweaters, and he is also always cold.
There are a lot of switches in the brain that can get really messed up with this disease. The "I'm hungry", "I'm full", "I'm hot", "I'm gold", "I'm tired", etc. We went through stages where he had to wear his jacket all the time along with gloves. Of course if he lost one glove we also had to tear apart the house looking for it. I used to buy mulitple pairs of the same kind of gloves to be able to use them longer. He eventually hit a point where he didn't care if they matched or not. He also didn't care if the gloves he wore were mine or his - if he got mine it was almost impossible to get him to give them up. I didn't realize how much he was playing with the heat and air until this year after placing him when my heating bill dropped almost $200 a month and the electric bill dropped almost $100.
My husband no longer understands about thermostats. He insists the air conditioner (or heat) is not on if nothing is coming out of the vents. The fact that the temperature is comfortable means nothing. He is constantly surprised when the heat or air comes on and comments that "they" are giving us heat now. We live in a single family home and have lived in places where we control the heat for more than 40 years.
Yes my dad did the glove thing and my Dh is now into feeding the poor fish. I have to skim out the tank everytime I walk by it. The poor fish is so confused, Food in/Food out!!!!!!!!!! He has not blamed kids but he blames "them" and "they", "they" come in the house and put things in the fridge and freezer.
i get great information every time I come to this website. Thanks again Joan. Currently, my wife is obsessed with thinking every thing she touches is greasy, and I mean everything. She was mad yesterday because the clothes I washed and dried were greasy. Even the paper towels right off of the roll and the bar of soap at the kitchen sink are greasy. She has accused me of putting cooking oil on my hands and rubbing it on all of the door knobs, handles etc. throughout the house. She washes her hands 20 times a day to get the grease off. She asks everyone who come in the house if things feel greasy. Is there no end to the strange behaviors this disease causes??
And, now the day begins. He's shaving and said that the razor's not doing a very good job. He wonders if those kids were fooling around with it again. I don't even answer. By the time afternoon comes, he'll be completely normal. This is the strangest disease, isn't it?
I was hiding her bras. She came at me every morning and accused me of hiding her bras. Now what I do I want with a couple dozen 36Cs? Use them for slingshots?
ADLOs wanting to pile on the sweaters and turn up the furnace is a hot topic on the "other" site right now. Some of the caregivers sweltering in the current heat wave in California are objecting to the furnace being on full-blast. (Some people are SUCH wimps.)
Johanna C, a very well-respected member of that discussion forum (RN, with a lot of experience with LOs that have AD or FTD), says that in advanced age and/or a compromised state, a person does not sense the heat and still feels "cold". HOWEVER, damage is still being done to the body whether they feel it or not. Extreme heat is very taxing on the cardiopulmonary system. Therefore, it is very, very important to cool them off whether they like it or not.
She suggested installing an AC unit that the ADLO cannot reach and, frankly, letting them yell. Eventually, they will get tired of it. There is an air conditioning unit that can be placed far up on an inside wall and is very efficient. It is controlled by remote control. Unfortunately, she doesn't remember the name of it, but her folks have one in Leisure World.
This past weekend it started-- the "they did it" thing. I'd been waiting for it and sure enough it has begun. "They" take the remote control for the TV. "They" ate all the yogurt. "They" don't flush the commode. Etc, etc, etc. Oh yes, and "they" put the ice cream in the refrigerator where it spoiled (was melted) and put the cheese in the freezer. Yeah right!!!
And yes, he wears a down vest all the time. DH says he is more comfortable because it is soft and keeps him warm. He also wears his hat all the time, even inside the house, which he never did. If not wearing it he's carrying it therefore cannot pick up anything else. Reminds me of the little girl in "Sound of Music" who couldn't sing because her brother had bit her finger.
Folks, I'm about ready for the looney bin!!! Take care!
Oh yes, the hat. Apparently headaches are common for AZ patients. He says the band makes his head feel good. This is not a battle worth fighting! Now, now, looney bin... we used to like Looney Tunes, right? Pick our battles!
I thought I would ask this question here even though this is a pretty old thread --
Anyone else have the problem of keeping windows open when it's nice outside. I'm so tired of having the a/c on, but every time I open windows my husband is right behind me closing them.
Good gosh,,, we have all of the above... Ace Hardware might do well to buy padlocks from us..No keys.. he says somebody took those.... DH is still wearing his leather jacket in June,, when I ask if he's cold, he says no, but he just wants to wear that coat... In the car, I'm scorching and he can't stand the AC, I turn the heat on and HE wants AC.. Our house is locked up, closed up and well secured by 4PM.. when I ask the reason,he says it's so he won't have to get up later to close up everything...I go out on the patio at that time and he locks me out... He is clearly, ready for nightime.. Logic is not a part of dementia...Last night, he was so upset.. the TV remote wouldn't work... a simple task to us to remove that aaa battery.. instead DH took an allen wrench to that sucker and poked and hammered at it til he was frustrated.. thrust it in my hands.. I quickly snapped the battery out and it burned my hand... It was ready to explode... So,my friends, along with the guns and knives, now lock up the batteries...
Peggy, you gave me my first laugh today! Keys are lost constantly here. Fortunately, they're always somewhere in the house, not outside. But, every window must be locked, even the ones upstairs. The doors have storm doors on as well and the doors have two locks, one deadbolt and another, as well as a lock on the storm door. All of these are locked. It's like Fort Knox here. There is absolutely nothing I can say to make him stop doing it. It's just another "grin and bear it" kind of thing.
Our garage is attached to our house and every night DH locks the storm door and the main door.Then he puts a prop under the door knob.He jambs it under there so tight that he broke the knob right off the door.You know someone is always stealing some thing out of the garage.....RIGHT.
if they arent trying to button up the house like fort knox, it seems the opposite is happening, 'runners' who are are on a constant search for ways to escape- i guess the only way to have some fresh air would be to padlock the door to an area just for you maybe a bedroom or study - and go read /enjoy that special place for awhile and try to keep them out of that area. out of sight out of mind. and yes they can sure make a mess of stuff trying to 'fix' things. my DH actually managed to take the bolts off the front door and screws out of the doorknob with a table knife. i think he probably would have succeeded in taking the whole door off if i hadent resorted to the dead bolts. they can be quite intuitive even in a demented state.
We dealt with both problems at one point in time. The first was shutting and locking every door and window, that was easy enough to handle as we have the crank style windows. I would open the windows and then remove the cranks. Sneaky I know, but it worked most days. I say most days because there were some days he actually figured out how to close them with a pair of pliers. That was okay too as it took him a long time to locate the pliers and then figure out how to close them, it gave me moments of peace when I knew he was safe and not getting into trouble.
Then came the harder part of our journey, when for reasons known only to him he HAD to leave the house. This was fine at first as I liked him to get outside and get some fresh air. He needed supervision of course, and that too was fine except when he would leave when I had my head turned for mere moments. I had to put safety alarms on the doors and some windows too. Later as he got worse, so did his irrational want to "leave". At that point I had to put locks on the door; I hated doing it, but reminded myself it was for his safety. This worked semi well until one winter night I found him outside! He had somehow managed to open the bedroom window and had crawled out!! eeeeeeek!!!
For some reason he only tried to get out of the bedroom windows. I know he often got confused and sometimes frightened by him own reflection in the windows and can only assume that played a part in it. That same night the bedroom windows were covered and I placed a single nail on the outside of each window frame. Not enough that I couldn't force it open in case of an emergency, but enough to discourage him from trying to get out. Drastic, but at least I knew he wouldn't be out in the snow with no shoes on!!
This thread reminds me so much of DH. He closes the blinds while it is still bright out. I open them up. He does it because he is cold. Here in NC we run our AC from June until October. It was 96 yesterday and he was cold. I turn the air up to 78. He is cold because he does not move around very much. I have to do everything in the house and sometimes he stands and watches. He will turn on a light and then tell me someone left he light on in there. He has at times gone all OCD about trivial things that make no sense. Last month he was all about giving things away, especially his magazines. He kept insisting our daughter take his Reader's Digest, one that he had not read. Then, he wanted her to take my magazines. He started going through my night stand and showing me what he "found" Now, he has forgotten about the magazines. I have found that I have to remove any extra distractions from his view.
Interesting thread for me, as it highlights the difference between typical AD and the PCA variant. Jeff is a lot less "misbehaved" than some of the other spouses. Partly because his memory is not as impaired, and partly because he CAN'T do any of the mechanical things that other AD folk do that drive spouses to distraction. We also have casement (crank-out) windows, and there's no possible way he could open them, with or without the crank removed. As for turning lights off or on. No, he can't find switches or operate lamps.
Had a great alrighty moment here... I managed to get thru to 10AM without DH accusing me of something... Felt mighty fine about that but when I picked him up after his swim at the Y, he started in on the car... the doors don't open wide enough for him so I casually commented that there was nothing we could do about that.. Rage ensued,,with his planning to either take a sledge hammer to it or cut it off with an acetelene torch... the Hammer, I hid and we don't have a torch...I ask him when he planned to get started on the project and it said as soon as he could think about it... No more was said the rest of the day... I have found tho, when he's making me miserable, he is happy but when I show no reaction to some of his logic, he gets upset and develops weird reasoning... anybody else have this??? I'll check before I go to bed to see if the car still has all it's doors..... He is sincere when he suggests these dumb things... I'm thinking that this is another way of his showing who has control...When I say nothing then he takes charge??? another thing to add to our list of things to watch for...
Oh Peggy-you bring back memories that were frightening at the time and very sad now. My husband was always devising ways to keep "them" from getting in. Many the times I had to drive him to Home Depot so he could look for materials that thank goodness he could never find. To give him some freedom and self worth I would let him wander the aisles-but always stayed where I could see him.
And to think, just 30 days ago he was insisting we go to Home Depot everyday to haul lumber... You see, he has shelved every wall in the basement, all cock-eyed and with each item carefully spaced 2 inches apart.... So, If I can hang onto the car doors for another 30 days, it'll be time for another interest to develop.. This disease is certainly not boring..So sad to watch them try to process information.....
I am seeing some door locking but so far not a problem. What he is doing that will drive me nuts is turn off the switches that need to be left on i e the answer machine...or the switch for the remote for the ceiling fan light, turns off the coffee pot when we are drinking coffee...I suppose better turning things off rather than leaving things on like the cooktop.
Oh, he always has sweaters on, is cold, wants sweets like crazy, says he doesn't eat much but he eats all day long and then come dinner isn't always hungry but now and then he is.
He is starting to lose some words...I have to define words and he doesn't always understand some figures of speech...He has the neurotrax test next month..
This thread brings back the memories. We went through ALL of it. The closed doors even in summer (We have an extra door in the living room that is seldom used. I discovered that I could open it wide and just put a chair in front of the screen and DH would usually not notice. If it's any comfort, it all passes. Now (late stage 6) he just mostly sits all day and does not try to close any doors, turn anything off, or try to get away.
My dh is into something rather new of late..door locking, light shutting off, coffee pot shutting off, security lights go off, and on nice days he is too cold to have the door open or the window open for fresh air..when he goes to bed, up go the windows for the nice evening breeze..otherwise I just go outside and pull some weeds. We had so much wind and rain I now have this weed called Barnyard Grass in my lawn..and it chokes out the grass...it is terrible. Weed B Bone works..I tried it here and there and the pesky weeds do come up without much work..I just has so much of this.I am glad it isn't crabgrass..
Mine is always cold ... he turns up the heat, I turn it down (after all, I'm 58 and I run hot). He does forget to turn off the stove when he makes hot cereal; no other phobias that I can think of yet.
Lately, he gets really mad when I say something he doesn't want to hear and then I am Atilla the Hud and am ALWAYS doing or saying something awful to him. Today we were looking at houses and he had a bout of incontinence (made a bit of a mess in the model home bathroom - guess who cleaned it up??). We ended up eating our lunch in the little park at this development we are interested in and he said he had to go the bathroom again and I didn't want him to go again at the model so I dropped him at a HoneyBucket one street down. When he finally emerged he wanted the keys (I thought to listen to the music), so I dropped them down to him and he immediately started the car up and started down the street. I went out on the deck and asked him what he was doing and that he wasn't supposed to drive and he knew why. He wouldn't talk to me all the way home except to yell in a very angry manner that I ALWAYS said or did something awful whenever he got into the car and he can't do anything about it, blah, blah, blah. He's still not talking to me 2 hours later. Last night, same thing because I got on his case about drinking too much. He soon forgot why he was mad but he knew I was just awful anyway and stayed mad for hours. I guess this is a new phase for him and me to go through (oh happy days!!).
mothert, it is no consolation, I'm sure, to say that with dementia, we will always be unappreciated by our LO's... Sometimes, I feel so defeated and can't do one thing about it.. In the past we could talk and make up, smooth things out... Now, can't do that, they don't understand what they did or why we're upset..Most of us have been good spouses, but as this disease progresses, we are reduced to the most vile of the vile... I often ask DH why he married me in the first place.. Certainly I am fit for nothing other than as you say to expertly clean up messes and keep him from doing something truly dumb... Yes, more phases to come...I for one am absolutely champing at the bit to experience the next episode....