A little over a year ago, my husband began hugging and kissing women on the cheek. He had not done it before. At first, however, it was always women we knew well, so it wasn't much of a problem. At the time, he was using Androgel because he had low testosterone. The doctor took him off that, and the hugging and kissing decreased.
Recently the problem has increased. We live in a retirement community. We are in an apartment in the Independent Living section of the facility, and we eat one meal a day in a community dining room, where we are served by high school and college age students. Also, DH goes to Adult Daycare three times a week. In the last few months, he's begun hugging and kissing women again, including women he's never seen before such as the ticket taker at a movie theater last week. He has also patted one of the waitresses and one of the staff people at day care on the bottom. He hugs and kisses the waitresses, other staff here where we live, other residents here, and staff at Daycare fairly often. A couple of weeks ago, he started telling some of the young waitresses that he liked their bodies. Also he has been hugging young girls if we are in a restaurant or store and one is nearby. Two days ago, he became interested in another client at daycare and followed her around. He hugged her and kissed her on the cheek several times. After the director talked to him, and he agreed he wouldn't do it again, he continued and kissed her on the lips. The director then called me and said that unless we get this behavior under control very quickly, he cannot continue to attend.
Two weeks ago, after the comments to the waitresses, the doctor put DH on cimetidine, which is an ulcer drug that sometimes helps with sexual disinhibition in dementia. When I called him about the recent incident at daycare, he said to double the dose of cimetidine. He also made an appointment for us next Tuesday with a urologist to investigate giving DH injections of Lupron, which decreases testosterone. Since we took him off the androgel that he was using because his testosterone was too low, it seems to me it must be pretty low already.
Has anyone else dealt with this? Do you have experience with medications that worked for you? By the way, my husband is really not ready for placement. It seems unlikely that anyone would accept him at this point, partly because he is still quite capable and partly because of his behavior. Thanks for any advice or experiences you can share.
Another drug to discuss is Proscar, used for enlarged prostate but one of the side effects is reduced interest in sex. My husband liked it because it is also fairly effective in reducing hair loss.
oh gosh janet. i sure hope you find something to curtail this as it can lead to alot of issues like rejections with daycare and placement. mine did it for a while about mid stages but i watched him like a hawk and he never left my care, as i was just too scared what he may do. it can become a legal issue if someone complains. i wish you luck finding the right med. i would not leave him in company of minors for sure. he kisses or touches inappropriately a minor could mean huge trouble. dementia or not.
divvi, the hugging little girls is what scares me the most. It doesn't matter if I'm with him or not. I can't stop him from doing any of it. I hope we find something too.
My husband didn't have disinhibition, but to my surprise he never made an issue about not having sex, so I think I saw some effect in the direction that would be helpful to you.
Janet, when my husband went thru this stage I too watched him like a hawk. I was told that Risperdal can be effective in reducing/eliminating hypersexual behavior. DH has serious side effects after 1 dose so never really knew if it would be effective.
Janet--this is in response to your saying that one of the issues that might prevent placement is that Bob is "still quite capable". From what I've seen at the ALF where Steve lives, that's not a stumbling block. The facilities are businesses that are all about the bottom line, and because of the economic turndown, their resident populations are down. Since new residents bring added revenue, I don't think anyone would be rejected because they're still capable of taking care of their own needs. As a matter of fact, there's a man at Steve's ALF who does all the ADL's himself--he doesn't have dementia, but is bipolar. He just needed a place to live and apparently can pay the bill, so he's there.
Janet, as Marilyn says, due to the economic downturn and the decimation of investment portfolios (ie 401k's, IRA's etc) many facilities will now consider taking clients they would have turned down a few years back. However, if your husband has long term care insurance (LTC) they may not pay for his assisted living because he may not meet the requirements for them to pay which are typically he cannot perform 3 ADLs without supervision...or has impaired cognitive skills.
Every memory care unit in town is constantly full and has a waiting list. I don't think they would take someone who wasn't ready if anyone else was on the list - but I really don't know. I also doubt our LTC would pay for it right now, and I couldn't begin to pay it myself. I'm planning to call our LTC caseworker Monday to discuss their criteria for paying for placement.
I know each LTC policy is different, but I was able to get Steve's to kick in early on (for an adult day program) because his doctor wrote a statement saying he needed supervision due to cognitive impairment. The ADL issue really didn't have to come into play. I believe that if I had pursued placement at the time, the same statement would have sufficed in terms of jumpstarting the policy.
Shortly after I started this thread in January, the doctor started my husband on Cimetidine. He started at 400 mg once a day and when the problem didn't improve increased it to 800 mg twice a day. That helped quite a lot until about two or three weeks ago. Many of the same problems as before are occurring. Today, the nurse at daycare called and asked me to talk to his doctor about changing the medication. I talked to the doctor, and he suggested trying intramuscular injections of medroxyprogesterone acetate. However, when I looked that up on the internet I found out that the way it works is by decreasing testosterone. However, when we saw the urologist I mentioned in the first post above, he tested my husband's testosterone and it is very low. The doctor I talked to today is a geriatrician who works with a memory clinic at a nearby medical school. Have any of you worked with a neurologist or psychiatrist about dealing with hypersexuality? Do you have any suggestions? I know some have come up in another thread called "Is this hypersexuality?" I am totally at a loss about about what to do. I certainly hope they don't kick him out of daycare.
i am not sure i think i read about some sexual offenders when they get out of prison they have to get an injection of some type to help impair their functioning abilities? court ordered. so there must be something out there to help this problem. i am of the mind that medical drs dont think the problem we describe to them is worth the effort of rxing a med of this type to control hypersexuality. they would think differently if our spouses were jailed due to some criminal intent on a child or juvenile. if my dr refused to administer a med to help i would have it documented in his files so if something did happen, they know you asked and they refused. shift the burden of intent without recourse. its a real problem. these guys are strong sexually mature and if hypersexual completely capable of forcing an issue if they want. we see it all the time, my DH has almost super human strength and hes bedbound and skeletal! aides cant beleive how strong he is. and hes late end stage. early mid stages need no explanations as to what trouble they can get into. even at daycare. its does make sense something to deter levels of testosterone would be prudent to control urges.ps found it! injection is Depo-Provera. i would ask the dr about it. divvi
This is SO helpful, as my husband is in the early stages, is younger (54) and very attractive, and exhibiting sexual disinhibition. (He has already had one emotional affair with a coworker, and simply does not understand WHY he cannot have a girlfriend OR a fling with a person who is married to someone else. Rational thought, is at times, beyond him concerning this. This is completely out of his normal character.) I did not know there were medications that can help with this. THANK YOU!
Daria, there is another support group that may be helpful to you. https://www.ftdsupportforum.com. It is an international group, very protective of privacy, very compassionate and sharing, with many threads that may be of interest to you. It has been very helpful to me.