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Support Group for Those of Us Living With Mild Dementia

Aging Well | Last Active: 6 hours ago | Replies (170)

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@rolett1

Thank you for your words of support, Scott. My children are older, 2 live out of state, but the other 3 do take the time to see their dad, have breakfast with him, conversations and he is even visiting one of the children for 6 days out of state, so I'm certain that she will get an eye-full. I didn't mean to make it sound like they don't bother, it's just that they don't live with us and they have their own jobs, children to raise. In fact they are all great kids.

My feeling alone is because I am home all day alone with him so I'm dealing with the day-to-day activities and MCI behaviors, and it's exhausting and sad at the same time. We have been married for 27 years and have had a very good marriage. It's worrisome to me as to what is going to happen to him and myself. He is a young 71 year old man. Very bright, well-read, fit and we eat healthy.

Do you know of a support group in Rockland/Westchester/NJ counties that helps support spouses with MCI and in similar situations? I feel I need to do this. I've been dealing with his MCI for 3 or 4 years and it's progressing. He does have a good friend that he sees for lunch and has no problem driving or getting lost on the roads. . But he does lose his phone, glasses, wallet, keys, sunglasses, hat, on and off and we have to search to find them (sometimes for hours). Sometimes we don't. I gave him a neck purse to wear, which he did for a while. Thank you.

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Replies to "Thank you for your words of support, Scott. My children are older, 2 live out of..."

Thanks for tge hug. I will give it to my husband! 🙂

I, too am in a similar situation as you are with my husband. Our days sound similar. I am also my 90 year old mother’s caregiver and spend a lot of time taking her where she needs to go. My children are also busy with work and their children. Most days run pretty smoothly, but there are those that don’t. The days when he can’t find a thing that he had in his hand five minutes before…give him enough time to think about it and he usually finds it. It might take an hour or a day or two. He gets frustrated, but we try to laugh about it. Like your husband, mine is still driving and is in fact a very good driver. He only drives around our city. He is fine in familiar areas. Our family doctor says he should quit, our neurologist says as long as I think he is capable then he should be fine. He told me I am the best one to know when he should quit as I am the one with him all the time. My husband is not ready to quit yet, but he has agreed to let me make the determination when it is time.
Like you, I too get tired of looking for things, explaining things over and over, having to handle all telephone communications, finances, but it is what it is. His problem seems to be more in communication, finding the right words to express his thoughts and of course short term memory. He works hard around the house and in the yards and is still very capable of keeping up our property which includes bush hogging on a tractor. We don’t watch much TV anymore as he just doesn’t seem interested, but he does enjoy watching videos on his phone every night. I do miss conversations that cover anything new or regarding future plans. His mind just doesn’t go there. He’s is great with the past and I try to help him stay on top of the present. Sometimes I do feel discouraged. He’s only 68 and we have been on this journey for a couple of years now. We had plans for travel and rving that we have had to let go. We will work around it. We are going on an Alaskan cruise with our daughter this summer something he has always wanted to do, but he never talks about it and is not involved in the planning because it’s in the future and he hasn’t gotten there yet. As frustrating as this whole thing is we both signed up for better or worse 43 years ago and I know if the roles were reversed he would be here for me so between my husband and mother’s care I just push on leaning heavily on my faith when I am weary and discouraged and I read a lot of books. I do have days when I get mad at the whole situation, I am human. I just wanted you to know you are not alone. There are a lot of us spouses dealing with this. There’s not a lot of support groups to help so I am thankful for Mayo Connect as it has helped me in many ways even more so than the doctors have. They treat the diagnosis the best they can, but we are the ones our loved are counting on to help them make it through each and everyday life. I hope it helps you to know we are all in this together. ❤️