My husband has decided he doesn't like our neighbor. We moved here a year ago & these people have always been very nice to us. In the past my husband has thought Steve was a nice guy to talk to. The only thing I can think of, is that the neighbor is a talker, since his retirement he has started a painting business & like to talk about it. Thankfully, I spoke to the neighbors the 2nd day we lived here, to explain my husband's medical condition. Any suggestions on how to handle this one? I hate not to talk to the neighbor, somedays he is the only person I get to talk to.

i have a neighbor who moved in recently across the street-we waved and say our greetings on our way out at times. i told her upfront that DH has AD and i hoped i would get some free time out after i worked the agency helpinto the program. she has invited me over for coffee several times now, and i need to go! without DH of course,i would leave him with the aide- but again it just shows how we do need outside help to give us a chance to socialize now and then. if your DH has issues with some particular persons, then dont push it, as they can become quite ugly sometimes when you least expect it. maybe you can visit like i intend to when i have someone to look after Dh for a bit. divvi

My husband was due for his annual longitudinal study. Last week was the first of the two-parter. They try to keep the same testers from year to year, if they can, to rule out any effect that the style the tester uses might influence the results.

Last year, the woman who did the "memory" part ran into trouble with my husband. He did not like her attitude, got horribly upset, and about an hour into the session, stopped and refused to go on. Several talks over a couple of weeks with the woman, her boss, and my husband later, he agreed to try again. He admitted he'd been a little unreasonable, just a tad too sensitive, and that the tester probably only had the best of intentions. They made it through the test, but he was rather touchy for the remainder of the day.

He's been doing memory testing every six to twelve weeks since then, with another woman, for the clinical trial. He likes her just fine, never a frown or complaint.

This time, with the longitudinal tester, he went into total meltdown in less than fifteen minutes, and was more upset than I've ever seen him, no matter what the provocation.

I gave the folks two choices: we switch to a different tester, or my husband withdraws from the study. They agreed to switch. I explained (several gazillion times) to my husband that he'd never see The Terrorist Interrogator again (which is what he calls her).

They decided to schedule the retest of the "memory" part, plus the second part (neuro) for the same day. I didn't think this was such a great idea, because normally, they schedule the tests a week apart, at least, because the tests can be so tiring. But they were pretty booked up, and I didn't want to seem unreasonable.

Morning of the test, my husband isn't about to get out of bed, something he hasn't done before. When I finally insisted he needed to get up because we had a lot of fun things planned for the day, he announced that they had BETTER NOT have that person there! and kept mumbling about it all through breakfast. (Where is his short-term memory loss when I need it???) I assured him, repeatedly, that he wouldn't even catch a glimpse of her. Then, I had trouble getting him to bathe and wash his hair, something else he hasn't done before. And he kept finding things he just HAD to do when I tried to get him to the car, whereas he usually looks forward to a car ride no matter where we're going.

Normally, my husband is Mr Charm himself, eternally optimistic about everything, happy to chat with anyone who looks his way, and he loves to people-watch. This day, he sat in the waiting room with arms folded and a glare on his face.

The woman who runs the study came out to fetch him. She took one look at his face, and asked if she could call me into the testing room if they ran into trouble. Husband has now decided to speak German only (he knows very few words, and doesn't speak even those with a recognizable accent), another totally new symptom. She led him away, and I waited with dread. No sounds of violence, no one rushing to get me to protect the tester, nothing. Maybe a good sign, maybe everyone was already dead and the sound-proofing kept me from hearing the fight.

Two hours later, he comes out with the new tester, and they have their heads together and are giggling over something. He's all done with that test, finished it in record time, perfectly happy to go into the neuro session. Comes out of THAT full of compliments for the neurologist (thank heaven, because this is the one who has been recommended to us for becoming his personal neurologist.) He's had a great day, the testing was a ton of fun, he thinks he did really great except maybe for one question that was a little tough, he was full of stories about the lovely chat he and the "memory" tester had had, and he even happily agreed to sign up for a new study on how aging and dementia affect the sense of smell.

What was it you said, divvi, about not pushing it if your ADLO has issues with some particular person ... ?

divvi, you'd think, though, that since these are people who work with AD patients day in and day out, they'd know better than to insist on using the same tester again after my husband ran into trouble with her the first time ... wouldn't you?

I've gotten the impression that a LOT of the patients don't like her, and refuse to continue a test or even drop out of the study. She tried to tell me last year that it's because the test is so difficult, and they get upset because they can't do well, and so they blame her for it. Transference, or something.

Well, it was the same test yesterday that he took last year, and that he took several times during the trial, and that he started to take last week. And his symptoms were so much worse going into the test yesterday (his AD is very sensitive to stress), that I'm sure he didn't do as well on it as he might have. Yet he was perfectly pleased with it this time.

What was the difference? The tester. Four people have administered that test to him, now. Three have done fine. One hasn't.

And how would the patients even know whether they're doing well, unless she tells them they're giving the wrong answers? She shouldn't be doing that -- it biases the results.

My husband tried to explain why she upsets him so. I gather that she does tell him that he's wrong, and argues with him when he tries to justify his answers. And having been a hot-shot super-executive that everyone kowtowed to, he isn't exactly used to this type of treatment. The lady who runs the study tried to tell me the tester wouldn't ever do anything like that. I think this one would.

I think what I'm trying to get at, is that sometimes the ADLO has perfectly good reasons for HAVING issues with some particular person. Maybe not reasons the rest of us may have, and maybe not reasons that are always obvious ... but reasons, nevertheless. Pushing the issue is rather like trying to argue with an ADLO. Ain't gonna work.

I ended up feeling bad that I hadn't done a good job at protecting him from an unpleasant experience. I did try to ask for a different tester last year, and let them argue me out of it. I didn't tell them everything I personally had observed about the tester -- I didn't want to cause trouble for her, and I suspect it's hard for them to find people willing to conduct the tests, day after day, year after year.

This time, I was a lot more blunt about what I thought was going on. If she is bullying the patients (and I believe she is) then she might do some serious damage. At the very least, they're not getting reliable test data with her. If they're going to keep her on, even knowing that a lot of patients don't respond well to her, that's their decision, but she is NOT upsetting my husband again.

I want him to take a bath voluntarily. :-)