My husband is losing things more and more.

I totally take care of everything so the stuff he loses doesn't pertain to money; thank goodness! As for the knives. There are a lot from pocket size to hunting and since he is 75 and had them all for many years it is harder to take away when it is MCI I am contending with and not dementia. Even though they are both brain problems they are totally different. Thanks though to everyone for their advice. I can see there are a lot of us in this together. Merry Christmas to you all.

A knife collection is a very bad idea for someone with a bad memory!

Dragonbait -- Have you MET husbands? Have you met a person with dementia? Theoretically you are 100% correct, but that theory doesn't work with very young people or people with dementia.

One thing we did that was really helpful:
My dad used to lose his checkbook constantly (he had dementia of some sort), then would ask one of us to take him to the bank to close that account and open a new one, which after two or three times was just ridiculous. I'm the bossy oldest kid, so I nicely said No...and we would find it in the house. I went into Amazon.com and bought him for three bucks a RED checkbook cover, and we could find the checkbook more easily, certainly more easily than a black or dark blue checkbook cover. He hid all his pistols himself, then couldn't find them, which was fine with us. But he felt vulnerable (lived alone with frequent care visits from his kids), so we would find knives and baseball bats in his bed! Poor thing. We finally "tricked" him into memory care by calling it in-house physical therapy and dietary therapy, which in a way it was. Then a lot of our worries were over and when we visited, he was always clean and dressed and liked to entertain us and the other residents. It's tough taking care of our elders, and I am glad this community is all in it together!

Ditto, Tarajane and Errett. Same exact thing here.

Errett, you are exactly right. Not where they should be. It also drives him crazy till it is found therefore it drives me crazy as well. Don't know how to avoid this. Also he can look in a place for it and I can go right behind him and find it where he was looking and he says WHERE was that and I tell him and he gets so disgusted with himself that he didn't see it.

Wish it were that easy with us. The things my husband loses are usually PUT AWAY. Just not where they belong. Almost always someplace they could be normally stored but not where they should be. Many times lost while away from home. Have to track them down. Wallets, watches, golf clubs, keys etc. Thank goodness we have found them as it drives him crazy till they are found.

tarajane, people are always misplacing things, dementia or not. What happens is that we get side tracked and something else catches our eye, then we forget what we were looking for.

If my Dad is looking for something, it is usually buried under the piles of paper he has around. If it isn't urgent, we just wait until it reappears while cleaning.

rmiller, you are looking at it like I am. However, he just keep finding them when I'm not looking and around we go again. During the day he is almost normal but it is the sundowners that seems to be the time he gets frustrated. Yes, I do keep them in the locked safe, but he found the keys *that I had hidden* and took them all out and put them back in all the places where they belonged. Just really agitates him if I try to move or get rid of them.

Edahmen, good point!

Even scissors belong hidden. My husband is 75 and has vascular dementia. To easier remove his diapers he would cut them off. Then he wanted the scissors to cut off his sweat pants because he was having trouble getting them off. Then I saw how he would literally slash at the diapers and told him no more scissors. The home care lady told me to keep them out of his room. He asks occasionally and I tell him I'm afraid what else he might want to cut off 😜 .

I agree the guns and knifes need to be lost permentaly! Even if he does not use the to hurt himself or someone else, they might be used by someone who finds them and then you could be held liable for what happens. To many accidents happen when weapons fall into the wrong hands. Get a safe deposit box if you feel the need to keep them. And even be bee guns are not safe. My husbands friend accidently shot his mother as she rounded the corner in their yard, the shot hit her right in the tempel and killed her. The boy never got over it. Better safe than sorry later. Weapons of any kind in a house with a dementia patient spell trouble.please be safe.

I'm running up to look under Dads mattress right now--good suggestion!!

Me personally, I would get any weapons out of the house. We had a neighbor who was shooting at cats with a BB gun. Illegal in a residental area where houses r only 30ft apart. A woman next to him found a bb hole in a window. At close range this is dangerous. A person with Dementia / Alzheiers can be in their own world and hate to think ur living room becomes a woods where he is hunting.

TG my Mom has her own room because she keeps changing where things r. I still haven't found a top she had that looked very good on her. I'm sure I washed it and put it away. Have looked in my clothes and husbands. Same happened with friend. Her father lost his wallet and keys. Her Mom hunted high and low, oven and microwave. A friend told hervto look under the mattress. Wala! He had put them way under that even making the bed she didn't find them. He asked about them everyday and she told him they were lost and without them he couldn't drive. Eventually he stopped asking. When she found them she hid them. By that time he was content and she sold the car.

I have the keys to the gun safe hidden and he knows it so he doesn't look for them . Everything else gets lost all the time , sometimes I help and some times I pretend that I'm too busy to look right now. He wants a new gun for Christmas which of course he is not getting again.

Oh yea, we lose things, also. Me, too. Most recent are two items: 1) his coupons for dining were lost; and 2) the Christmas card for his Daughter we hid and cannot remember where. So, we do a lot of back tracking. Comes with the territory and age, I believe. With dementia, I know it's even worse. But no use getting angry about it. I just help him backtrack. By the by, we found the coupons at the last restaurant he and his son visited. Now to find that card (as it has some money in it). Merry Christmas, everyone!

My dad is like a squirrel. Things disappear and reappear months later and who knows where they've been??? Presently he lost his wallet --nothing in it of importance but it's part of his routine. We can turn the house upside down and inside out and never find it and then one day it appears in his pocket just like it always does. He's Houdini and its mystifying.

I am going through the same thing with both knives and guns. It is crazy. I finally locked them all in our home lock box, but he found the keys and has them out again. It drove us crazy. Also is losing everything. Last was a set of his car keys. After about a month they showed up in his jewelry box. This has been going on for about a year. Driving me crazy if the rest isn't enough to deal with. I haven't found a solution but wanted you to know you certainly aren't alone.

Why do you think it is your responsibility to keep up with his stuff?

For safety reasons, I would hide all the knives. He can think he misplaced them. I would get them out of the house so he couldn't get his hands on them. Encourage a new hobby that isn't dangerous, such as stamp or coin collecting.