I'd get any treatment of any kind for him that you can. A psychiatrist is important as he can help with medication for him for hallucinations, anger, anxiety and the plain old despair that you must feel. I didn't understand why the women whose husbands had passed on felt so sorry for me. Four years later I got it!

Hello. My husband has been referred for a PET scan and to a geriatric psychiatrist after a diagnosis of fronto-temporal dementia. He first had a neuro-psych evaluation last fall which indicated severe short-term memory problems and neurological "spillover" . So, then he was referred to a neurologist who after extensive testing gave us the diagnosis of FTD and has put in an order for a PET scan and referred us to the geriatric psychiatrist who is part of a "Mood and Memory Clinic". It will be at least a year before we get in with the geriatric psychiatrist---they are so backlogged. It's so frustrating! The PET scan, according to the neurologist, is a functional MRI---- it shows exactly how the brain is working. It shows electrical activity throughout the brain. We are waiting for our insurance to approve this test. It is very expensive and the neurologist warned us that some insurances balk at covering it. Everything is overwhelming to me right now. My husband almost seems to be in denial about everything. Either that, or he just can't understand. If I try to talk about the reality of our situation he gets angry at me. He has always been a very smart man. He has a doctorate degree and has taught psychology at a college. He also had a successful private practice counseling service for many years. He retired from that last year. Now his thoughts are very disorganized although he still has his "smarts" . It's hard to follow his train of thought. Some days he seems like his old usual self which makes things even harder because day to day life is unpredictable.