What were the first dementia signs you noticed?

In my personal experience I find Family Practice Physicians and Neurologists may delay making a diagnosis because they do not want to create problems for the individual. For example, if the individual is driving safely but has their license taken away. If the individual will be treated differently because of the diagnosis. Medications may slow the progression but no cure. Some MCI don't get worse.

As challenges arise I've picked up the slack. I, too, struggle with the household maintenance. Some jobs require physical strength. I try to partner as much as possible. What he can do to help fluctuates. I miss his help.

I had an aunt who did the same thing after having surgery. She was in her eighties. I can't imagine there's much you can do. It must be so very difficult.

My cousin who has dementia also "made up" stories. Like she remember me making her scrambled eggs, which I never did. I made her a sandwich, but not even with egg. I didn't think much of the story at the time but looking back at it....maybe was a sign of things to come.

It's part of the disorder. Divert to another topic or leave the room. I once had a 95 year old woman in a wheelchair slap me in the face and accuse me of stealing her husband who had been gone for 30 years.

The first thing I noticed was that he was acting out his dreams, or waking up thinking what he had dreamed was real. He woke me to say there was a cat in the house, and I searched the whole house in case he was really right, but there was no cat. He did it again a few months later. Then it got more frequent - He would think he had lost something in the bed - his glasses, the TV remote, a radio, his dentures - when those objects were in their normal places for the night. Then he started doing it in the daytime when he hadn't been asleep. He didn't know who I was. He thought we were at the doctor's office instead of in our own living room. I thought he was just having hallucinations and in between he was himself again, but the cognitive test the doctor gave him showed that he wasn't thinking normally even when he seemed normal.

I looked back to see when I'd posted the number of times I was sure my husband didn't recognize me. It was December 28, 2024. Now I no longer have a count of the number of times, but it's easily half or more. Three times now when I've told him who I am, he looks at me with suspicion and says something along the lines of, "That's what you tell me, but I'm not sure about it." Probably in a few months, I'll be looking back through my posts to see when I could still count the times he reacted THAT way. 🙁

Yesterday he asked me several times who was parking their vehicles in the garage. I kept telling him they were OUR vehicles, but he didn't seem to believe that they all belonged to us or that they belonged to us as a unit. When I asked him if he knew who I was, he said I was a woman who calls his mom. (He's almost 89, so no one is calling his mom anymore.) After we got in the house, I showed him my driver's license, so he'd see my last name was the same as his. It didn't seem to help, but dinner and some MeTV shows seemed to get his mind off it. Helped me get mine off it, too, since I was close to tears by that time. I'm okay with him not knowing who I am because I understand that's the way this works, but the suspicion that I'm not telling him the truth is hard to take.

Today he seems okay, but earlier he offered to pay me for the gas we'll use when we go to visit friends in Ohio on Thursday. He does that kind of thing a lot—wants to pay for gas or for something I've bought that he likes to eat or use. My guess is he thinks I'm a paid caregiver or some nice neighbor lady (he said that once) who helps him out. There may come a time I'll just have to go along with that role.

He's forgetting more and more people, too—at least their names. I know he doesn't know some of them by sight, but there are others he hasn't seen lately, so I'm not sure about them. I really hope Thursday goes well. It's a get-together of guys he used to play racquetball with. All of them are up in years and many have health issues, so this is likely the last chance they'll have to all get together. Yesterday he wasn't sure he wanted to go. Today he seems to be looking forward to it. I've told him it's his choice whether we go, so we'll see. I expect him to be in bad shape by the time we get home, what with all the mental stimulation and fatigue, but I want him to see his friends while he can (hopefully) recognize them and share memories.

Thankful for this group! It helps to occasionally unload on people who really understand because they're also living it.

I think back now to noticing he couldn’t hang shirts correctly either on hanger or hook. I just thought he was being lazy.

My husband has started doing the hallucination thing, too. Not too often so far. He falls asleep in the recliner a lot, and it's usually been right after he wakes up. Sees an animal out the window, for example, when none is there. And he'll continue to insist there's one there for ten or fifteen minutes after he wakes up. He's also told me a couple of times that someone was looking in the bedroom window during the night or that a dog was outside that window. We're on a peninsula in a forest, so Peeping Toms are not likely. I figure it's some carryover from a dream.

I wish I could tell you something that would help, but all I can do is let you know I care about what you're going through. I guess one thing that helped me in a way was realizing that he can't help it. Those times when I thought he hadn't been listening to me, he really just couldn't remember what I had said. I remembered arguments where I thought he was being unreasonable. Now I realize, he really CAN'T reason anymore. Now I try to comfort him instead of arguing. I stopped pointing out the mistakes he makes and try now to just love him the best I can. I'm sending prayers for you.