That's a tough one. And, of course, the longer he goes without realizing ( or realzing but using " denial " as a response) the less likely he might be to opening up to it. As for when I recognized and acknowledged it, it was after I got my diagnosis and read about what awaited me in PD -Landia. It took about 3 years to get the diagnosis, because my only symptom was getting more and more severely fatigued and that made the fundamental cause extremely elusive. It was only when the exasperated doctor who headed the 3rd team of doctors who had tried to get a diagnosis but had failed like the others and decided to abandon the standard practice of FIRST figuring out the cause of a malady and BEFORE treating it decided to do things backwards and use the TREATMENT of a malady itself as a diagnostic tool that Mr. PD was tricked into revealing himself. This doctor gave me ONE l-dopa pill and when he came back an hour later, it was as if I had been to a tent revival where a faith- healer had put his hand on my head,did his thing, and miraculously I could do things I hadn't been able to do for well over a year because I was bed- ridden. And BOOM! I could sit up, walk short distances, stand up. Now I can grab my buddy Mr. Rollator and walk a couple of blocks alone and do some shopping. I can't manage a bag of kitty litter but I can fill Mr. R's basket with smaller things and take some of the load off my husband. Once I had my diagnosis, I began reading a lot about PD and the associated cognitive issues and I started noticing some things I was experiencing. For example, one chore I thought I could take on was filling my pill boxes. Initially I had 8 pilling ' "episodes" a day and I thought I could take over filling the 8 the pillboxes. I had typed up a scedule that showed what I was supposed to take and when. When I started filling the pill boxes, though, I found myself making mistakes now and then so I had to re-check the pill boxes. I knew it was taking awhile but I had lots of time on my hands, so that wasn't a problem. Then my hysband told me that it took me 3 hours to fill them and told me he wanted to do it himself. I had NO idea it was taking that long. But I apparently get lost in time and can't really tell how long I've been doing something, so the time issue and the confusion issue convinced ne that I should let him take that duty back. I wasn't helping him; I was making it harder for him. I also noticed that the thing where you walk into a room for some purpose but by the time you get there, you've forgotten what you came there for, was happening more often. Our flat has 4 rooms: (2 bedrooms, 1 living/ dining room, a kitchen, 1.5 bathrooms, and a foyer.)It 's not that big. But I can still foget why I came into a room. (We moved to Berlin when we retired so we could be close to our son and his family. While I miss the house we left in the States, if I can loose myself in a 3-room flat, I can't imagine what it would be like to wander around in a 4-story house with 3.5 baths, 4 bedrooms, a family room, kitchen, and a dining room, and a living room trying to remember where I was going and why I needed to get there. I do know I would have gotten lots of exercise, though!) Another thing that recealed my cognitive decline was when I got lost on my way to a doctor's appt. The doctor's office is 2 blocks from our flat - go out our front door, cross our street, turn left, walk past 2 houses and turn right, walk 1 block, cross the street, and the doctor's office is 1/2 a block down on the right. I had to call my husband to cone get me. We have lived in this neighborhood for 11 years. I have passed the podiatrist's a zillion times but only recently became a patient there. Although I have always been " directionally impaired" and have no sense of direction, this experience was extreme, even for me. Things like this convinced me that I was having meaningful cognitive issues. Has your husband had any cognitive testing? If not, perhaps these tests might help him come to realize his memory is declining. They will show him drawings of aninals and he' ll have to name them. He'll be asked to name all the animals he can think of. He'll be given a series of words to remember and after chatting about something else for a few moments he'll be asked to recite the list of words. He'll be shown some drawings and asked to draw them. If he's not been tested, this might help give him ( and you) a sense of how his cognitive abilities have been affected. I would encourage you to stop him from driving sooner rather than later. I know that my brain works more slowly now, so it takes me longer to assess what I see and figure out what to do (e.g., if I see a ball roll into the street, it takes ne longer to process this and figure out the appropriate response ( e.g., there is likely a child associated with that ball and I need to slow down and be ready to stop if he comes running after it. And kids are short so I should be especially focus a little lower than I would normally.
Also, my physical responses take longer to cone into play, so when Mr Brain finally tells me to step on the brake, it takes Ms. Foot a tad longer to obey. These 'tads' could add up and be long enough to make a huge difference between stopping quickly enough or not. Also, if your husband has trouble remembering directions, he might get distracted looking for signs or other things to get his bearings and not keep his eyes on the road or he might stop suddenly or in the middle of an intersection and
cause an accident. Or drive too slowly or turn the wrong way onto a one way street. We've all seen these things happen and often they don't end well. Fortunately, we didn't bring a car with us when we moved to Berlin and have gotten along well without one because public transportation is decent here. So we have saved our son the difficulty of taking our car keys away from us. I have some idea o how dufficult that can be. When one of my cousins visited my step-mom, who after picking her up at the airport, told her that she needed her to tell her what color the traffic lights were, my cousins and I tried to get her to give up her car, but she refused. We even asked the state highway departnent to revoke her license but they refused. What saved her from hurting herself or others was a fall that resulted in a broken hip, and she subsequently moved into a long-term care facility. Although she wasn't involved in an accident herself, the Lord only knows whether ir not she did something that caused an accident behind her, while she went merrily on her way, totally oblivious to the carnage she had caused.