My wife has been suffering with dementia for almost three years. The status right now, as I see it, is that she is probably in an advanced stage. She sleeps almost constantly - night and day. Previously it was mostly only in the daytime and up all night. She has asked me a couple of times in the past "What is wrong with me?" I have always just told her, that she is just losing a little bit of her memory, as we all do as we age (she is 87). Today though after asking what is wrong, she also asked "what is happening to me?" When asked what she meant, she said that she "feels like two different people". Is this something that dementia patients recognize and are able to vocalize? When asked what she meant, she said "sometime I feel like I do now" - she was eating breakfast acting almost normal - "then later on I feel mad and mean". That was the end of the conversation, she wouldn't talk to me any more.
Is this normal with dementia patients - does it signify something that I need to be aware of? Has anyone else experienced anything like this?
She mulled it over and seemed to understand.
Then proclaimed that it was surely due to something I’d done to her. Maybe poison.
Meh.
We are about 3 years in, as well.
She gets upset, and says, “I wish I could just be REGULAR” and “I wish I could be the one helping YOU.” The second is pretty weird, cause she never really was much help at all - she would say, “no one helped me!”
She also reaches out to get me to hold her hand. Which is also weird, because she was NEVER affectionate in my direction.
She also has no filter. Like your wife, trash talking comes easy to her, now that the filing cabinet that used to keep those words hidden away no longer holds much at all! 🤣
You’re a good husband!
Forgetting anything that happened 1/2 ago, but crystal clear on a conversation she had with someone in 1979.
Hides things, throws them away, whatever. The kids have been searching high and low for her most recent fall pendant and could not find it. Eventually, it came to mind that she'd thrown it away.
DH reports that she will be unable to phrase a thought, and when she's upset, she smacks herself in the head saying "why can't I remember that?".
The list goes on and on. The kids have opted to not have her tested for dementia b/c it's patently obvious she has it. (And OB is a psychologist and HAS given her several mini-psych tests. She doesn't pass anything.)
If only she had gotten 'nicer' with her dementia. She's so bad now they can barely get her to let in the CNA who brings her meds and bathes her. She yells at my DH when she's mad at OB.
The only thing I've heard from the 'kids' is that they simply do not engage with her, verbally, when she gets like this. She fights with them and blames them for things that didn't happen. They will try to re-direct conversations, but I don't know how helpful that is.
That's why a lot of them end up suffering from depression as the reality that they're basically losing their mind is more than they can handle.
It can be quite scary for some. Usually though as the disease progresses they become lost in their own little world and are no longer aware that they have these issues.
The fact that your wife seems to know that she's having these issues tells me that she may not be as advanced in the disease as you may think she is.
This is a horrible disease and it's heartbreaking to watch those we love lose themselves.
Bless you for taking such good care of your wife.
Answer honestly as you have been without details she can't handle.
My brother, with his diagnosis of probable early Lewy's loved to discuss it, how real his hallucinations were, and how he saw the world differently. What patterns in carpet of marble would bring on hallucinations. He was in early stages and said he was not happy to know where he was going, but was happy to know WHY he saw the world so differently. He would have been a marvelous test subject as he loved to discuss it.
Important is to tell your wife what she feels is normal for the condition she has and that you will be there for her and keep her safe and secure.