Husband in early stage dementia and is in denial

Linda 1951

My husband is 72 and in early stage dementia with aggression and outbursts and denial.  The stress of his anger and behavior is hard on me makes my stomach ache.  He can be mean.  He will not accept the changes in his mental health.  What can I do?  I was a caregiver for my Mother who dies of AZ but never lived directly with her.  I am looking for guidance.

RobOT

Linda, this first stage is hard because everything has changed.  You will find strength and wisdom to deal with him.  First, use your phone to get a video of his behavior.  This is proof that nobody can argue with.  Show the video to his doctor, write a note, and get him there under some pretext he will accept (this is called acceptable therapeutic fibbing). Tell him it's for some kind of test, maybe something related to the corona virus will work.  He probably needs medication for his outbursts and will feel better with it.  This might get worse, and can be dangerous to you or others in the house, including pets.  Drugging him won't turn him into a zombie or anything, it will just give the two of you some peace.  Hope you can get some help.

LicketyGlitz

Hey Linda, it sounds like your fella may be experiencing anosognosia? While we didn't got through it with our mom, and it sounds like your mom didn't either, I see a lot of post on her from caregivers working through it with their dementia folks.

Here's a Aging Care article regarding anosognosia (geez that's hard to spell!) with tips you may find helpful: https://www.agingcare.com/articles/anosognosia-dementia-patients-cant-recognize-impairment-210090.htm

And Robot's got a great suggestion to meds to help! Have his doctor, or geriatric psych doctor, prescribe something to help get him stabilized. He may still not accept the diagnosis but he will hopefully be calmer and easier to support.

Good luck!

DMHM

we are awaiting a visiting nurse to come on Tuesday to help with my dad's anxiety attacks, anger and depression. He is afraid of doctors and refuses to go - so we are hoping the home visit will work out. do you find that the medications help significantly with panic attacks/outbursts etc?