I have noticed over the past year that when someone tells my husband something, he & I hear 2 different things. Then he acts on what he thinks he's heard & I end up coming to the rescue.
There are many examples, but the most recent was today. Our sewer line backed up & we had someone come & clean out the drain. Today it backed up again, so my husband called the City. The workers came & explained another team would have to come & flush out the main line to determine the problem, no charge, since the main line is on city property, not ours. They showed him a paper stating if they cleaned it out the portion on our property, there would be a charge, but that was optional. He went out & spoke with them again & came in & told me he didn't want them to flush the main line, because they were going to charge him all this money, shouting out the figures. I explained to him that was not what they had told him. So I race out to the truck, fearful they will cancel the men coming to flush out the main line. He catches up with me, and tells them "MY WIFE IS CONFUSED." They explain it to him once more, & he came back into the house & said, that's not what they told me.
This happens often, like he doesn't seem to understand what a realtor has said to him, I explain, the realtor confirms, & he always says, they never told HIM that.
I just wondered if any of you have had similar experiences. It is exasperating, frustrating, and frightening, because I don't know what's going on with his brain & what he might do if he misunderstands & I'm not here to explain things, get it cleared up or cleaned up.
It puts us in heated debates about what a person actually said. If there weren't consequences for the lack of comprehension or whatever you call it, I would just let it go.
yes, the AD person not only has memory problems, he/she develops cognitive difficulties which encompasses comprehension , both expressive and receptive language. Most people including the medical field people , I'm afraid, are not trained to understand the ramifications of the loss of these communication skills. This is another reason to have discreet cards to hand people that your spouse will talk to explaining the illness and your spouse's abnormal behavior. As to when you are not present or unaware of the situation, I suppose you try to forwarn the individual or just do the best you can. That is all anyone can do... yoou will probably receive much better suggestions than mine.
Thanks for clearing that up. Just got off the phone with my cousin. Her husband's mother & a lot of people in his family had AD. She said she experiences this all the time. Told her about this site. So their intake receptors are not working. She's had her husband tested & then tested by a neurlologist, & still no diagnosis. What's up with these dr.'s? They didn't even talk to her - "that's the old methodology, to talk to the spouse." We had a lot of good laughs, which is good for the soul. So good to talk to someone normal.
Where do you get those cards?
I thought I was in the EARLY stage. I think now I'm in deep doodee.
Joan and others have said you can get them from your local Alzheimer's Assoc....or you can make your own on business size cards, can get printed at Kinkos...can say something like, My companion has Alzheimer's and sometimes has inappropriate behavior and/or does not comprehend you appropriately. Thank you for your patience.
YES!!!!!!! It took me a lot of tense times between us before I realized his mind does strange things with info. I came home one day, he still drive sand is very high functioning. He wasnt home and I called him on his cell phone and he said he was at the place to put the cat to sleep because I told him it was him or the cat. He was crying and apologizing to the cat. I told him to come home immediately and we would take care of it. It is my cat, I don't believe in putting animals to sleep and nothing like that has EVER been discussed in this house. The cats don't go out of the house so the poor cat must have been as upset as he was. The cat hissed at him for a few days - but I can only wonder what will be next. Good luck. I take care of things as much as I can and leave him out of it and he seems relieved. I don't try to reason with him, he just can't comprehend.
Val, Here's a link to a great article describing Alzheimer's dementia. While this may not be what you are dealing with, it may be helpful if you are dealing with something similar. http://www.alzheimer.guelph.org/downloads/12%20pt%20Understanding%20the%20Dementia%20Experience.pdf
Anyone who hasn't read the article PatB gave us the link to should read it now. Since it is a pdf file you can also save a copy to your own computer and even give it out to people if you want to. Their is a permission to distribute paragraph on the last page. As long as you distribute the entire thing, it is legal to hand it out.
It is long, and having a copy of your own might make it easier to read all of it. Don't let the first page get to you. The author is explaining why she is making the rest of the paper readable. Get past that into page 2 and beyond and you will be amazed by the information there.
PatB, Excellent! That article (more like a book) explains a lot. Thank you so much!!!!! It even covers comprehension, which baffled me, but no one had mentioned. It is very comprehensive and very readable. I'm going to print out a copy when my husband isn't around. I had to minimize it twice during the reading. I thought the comments about denial were especially interesting, that they are not in denial, this is their reality. It was a great albeit sad read.
I spent 10 years working with Special Education children who had comprehension and processing difficulties. My job was to break down information for them into small, manageable segments, teach them strategies to use on their own, and to train Regular Education teachers how to teach to, and communicate with, these students. There is basically no difference between what I did then and what I am doing now with my husband, except he can no longer remember the strategies on his own.
If you go to the home page - www.thealzheimerspouse.com - and click on the side topic - Memory Strategies - there is a lot of information there about how to communicate with an AD patient, so they will be less confused. That section is about 3/4 of the way down, and it is titled - "How to Speak to an AD Spouse so They Will Understand You."
To save a copy of ANY pdf file to your computer, look for the pdf button bar. Right next to the button for printing is a button for saving a copy to your computer. Push it and follow the steps. The button looks like a 3-1/2 floppy disk which is a pretty standard icon for the save button in most programs.
The tricky part is that you do not use the button bar buttons from your browser. The pdf file opens in a special window and Acrobat Reader has its own buttons just above the reading window.
A lot of good info about this disease is in pdf files and I've got a folder on my hard drive where I save them.