Dementia Support Group

Hi, My name is Jan and my husband Greg was diagnosed with dementia last summer. I had known something was terribly wrong for a good 18 months before that, but it took a long time to convince the doctors to do any testing as he is quite bright and hides his difficulties well. In looking back I think his problems started some time before even I noticed anything. It was several years ago that he started obsessively labeling things, and I think that was the beginning.

Anyway, his dementia has progressed slowly. Greg is 72. But now he has been having more difficulties like not knowing what day it is or if it's morning or night, though sometimes he seems fine. He wants to go on as if there's nothing the matter, but so many things have gotten beyond his abilities to do. He's on namenda and exelon. The exelon semed to help a lot at the beginning, but not so much anymore. I haven't noticed any improvement with the addition of the namenda several months ago.

Hi and welcome to the group. A lot of what you are describing seems so familiar, like the problems starting so gradually that it is hard to figure out exactly when things changed, but then it becomes enough that you can see it daily even though other people may not notice. I remember both my Grandparents getting very confused about what day it was and times of day getting all mixed up.

It is hard to evaluate medications sometimes since it is so hard to tell if it is slowing the rate of decline even when it is not giving any noticable improvements. My Grandma took aricept for a really long time and while we never saw any visible improvement (it could have been a sugar pill for all we could tell at the time) she declined slower and lived longer than expected from the statistics that I read when she first got diagnosed (I doubt the stats I saw then still apply since aricept, exelon, namenda and probably a bunch of other meds all came out after she was diagnosed).

Anyway, welcome to the group. Feel free to explore a bit and ask any questions you have.

Thanks for writing back. I looked around and read several posts. I have a lot of questions and concerns to post about- I started a list- so will try to start some discussions soon. I read a lot I could relate to, and i think this will be helpful. Jan

I will be looking for your questions. Glad it looks like this will be helpful for you.