Advice please!

Yorklady53

I’m fairly new here and this is my first post. 

My DH was diagnosed in February with AD. I saw slight changes for several years but this past summer, there was a significant downhill slide with several potentially dangerous incidents. I was finally able to get his PCP to refer him to a gerontologist.

He is still able to bathe, toilet, and dress himself though he often needs help choosing appropriate attire. His executive decision making is gone and his ability to communicate is seriously diminished. He always had many hobbies and his first love was restoring antique cars. 

He doesn’t show interest in anything other than the western channel, his daily newspaper, and his laptop. I recently discovered that he is often on a porn site. This absolutely terrifies me as I worry that he will click on something that could take him to illegal sites. I confiscated his computer until I can figure out how to put parental controls on his account. He is very upset with me for taking his laptop from him. Explaining to him the danger he is putting himself in is, of course, not getting through to him. He is honestly at the point that he can’t and doesn’t have the desire to email friends but he sure can find the porn site. 

Has anyone else experienced this? It’s upsetting to me but especially since I feel he could open us up to hackers or to him inadvertently visiting even more horrendous sites. I don’t want to totally take his laptop because he does enjoy playing solitaire. He doesn’t remember how to navigate to websites other than by using his favorites bar but I am very hesitant to give it back to him. Are there any devices that I could purchase that has controls preset or is it better to just download  an adult content blocker on his existing laptop? I think his time with electronics is already limited as he is only successful answering his cellphone one in a while. Even when he remembers to slide to answer he will forget to say hello unless I am there to prompt him. I also should add that he has never made an online purchase. Even before ADhe was too intimidated to try it so I don’t think our credit card info is compromised but I’m sure that is a possibility. What advice can you give?

May flowers

Sorry you are going through this, I can imagine that is very frustrating. Maybe consider a content blocker like netnanny. We used that one when my kids were young it worked well. 

We worried  when my FIL was on online - he didn’t look at porn, but would post personal information online all the time and we became concerned he was going to have his identity or financial info stolen.

abc123

Welcome YorkLady! I’m glad you found us. There is much to be learned here by reading the boards. Many people here with years of experience as caregivers who often share priceless information. The porn issue is common to plenty of PWD. (People With Dementia)  Hopefully others will come along with advice to offer you.

You mentioned you took his computer away from him which I think was wise until you get guidance on how to set up safety nets. My only advice is to ALWAYS blame someone else when you have to makes changes to his routine/life. Such as telling him there was a recall on his laptop and you had to send it in for updates. Tell him you are waiting to hear back from the company as to when it’s been fixed.  This will keep the heat off of you, he can’t be upset/mad at you for something you did not do. Always blame the doctor, repairman, mailman, etc. The most important thing we can do for our PWD is to comfort them as well as take care of them. Whatever brings him comfort is the path to take. We call it fiblets or therapeutic lying.  There is no good reason to tell our PWD anything that will upset them, hurt their feelings or cause them emotional pain. It’s important to keep the peace as much as possible.

We care about you and him, we really do. Feel free to ask ANY questions you have and you are welcome to rant and vent. You are not alone, you have us.

abc123

I forgot to mention that trying to explain anything to him is pointless now. He is not capable of being reasonable or understanding. His brain is broken unfortunately. He is not capable of learning new things. If he does happen to remember something it won’t be for long. I’m sorry you are both going thru this nightmare.

Yorklady53

Thank you! It’s a difficult situation to add to an already stressful time. I feel like I don’t even know him anymore.

Arrowhead

 You mentioned that he doesn’t remember how to navigate to websites other than by using his favorites bar. If he has porn sites on his favorites bar, they can be deleted from it. Click on the bar, position the curser over the name of the site and right click it. You will get a drop-down menu, at the bottom of which is Delete. Left click that and the site will be deleted. 

I don’t have any experience with content blockers.

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harshedbuzz

I am sorry you are dealing with this all to common unfiltered behavior. 

As others have pointed out, the ability to follow a reasoned argument is no longer in his skill set. You need to act but in a manner that allows you to be his ally when he can't have his way. 

Since he's already struggling with the cell phone, you might be able to manage this by simply changing the wifi password which will prevent him accessing the internet. This would allow you to ponder with him if there is an outage in the area. If the solitaire is downloaded he'd still be able to play. In a pinch, I would put dad's laptop into airplane mode which accomplished the same thing but he was midstages at the time.

Geek Squad or an independent computer repair shop should be able to install the sort of rigorous site blocking software used in schools. 

If it become a source of frustration, you could *ooops* drop a can of Coke into the keyboard. 

HB

Yorklady53

HB, that is a brilliant suggestion. I will do that and that will buy me some more time to install a blocker. Thank you so much.

Yorklady53

Arrowhead, thank you so much for that. It actually isn’t on his favorite bar that I can find. It’s almost like there is a shortcut to it. When I right click on it delete isn’t an option. Tuesdays are the day his caregiver comes for four hours. I’ll be working on this as soon as I have completed my appointment with our accountant. I’m sure I can figure it out, it just frustrates the daylights out of me that I have to spend the few precious hours I get a week to solve yet another issue he has inadvertently caused. I do know that he must have been watching pre AD because there is no way he would have found this anytime in the last year.

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Yorklady53

Lol Victoria, from porn to horror show in one fell swoop!

Anyway I seem to have things under control now. I have him disconnected from the internet. He can’t figure out how to get himself reconnected so he is keeping himself amused with solitaire.

I have to say that I’m extremely disappointed in him because obviously he did all of this pre-dementia. There is no use expressing displeasure because he wouldn’t understand it anyway so it would be an exercise in futility. Plus I have my hands full getting our home ready to be sold, taking care of him, managing our property here, and getting our new home ready for us to move into that I don’t have the desire or energy to focus on the past.

Thank you all for being here.

KillAlz

Has Alzheimers and is watching porn, wow that to me is impressive, I'm not sure the exact situation and what exactly it is he's doing but if he's just checking out porn I don't know is that so bad?
If he's going into illegal porn then that is different and yes something should be done about that but just porn I'm not real sure if that is so bad for him, maybe but maybe not.
Maybe set your prejudice about porn aside and see if it helps him some how, if it makes him happy some how.
Like I said to my Dad who can't even turn on a computer, he just takes it a part and says someone is coming in and doing this.
But like I was saying, I told my Dad I'd eat horse crap if I knew it would help, I mean seriously eat this and slow or stop this disease or continue to get worse what would you do?
I'd be chowing down, gagging but to think of the alternative.

So maybe porn helps in some strange way and if you absolutely know it does not then forget everything I just said & sensor it some how.

One other thing is there are assisted living places that people meet and actually hook up believe it or not with having this disease.
I just recently brought my Dad to a place and this was happening there, this little old lady pretty much was flirting with my dad, the lady showing us around said, oh yea people get together here occasionally, she said it does happen, she mentioned one couple who wound up moving in together within the facility.

Just so you know I am not at all a advocate or anything like that for porno in any way at all, it's just this disease is so darn* evil and so unknown how to deal with it I feel it's likely best to be open to anything even if you don't understand it or disagree with it, it's not about us it's about helping those who are affected with this horrifying disease and how I see it is if porn, eating horse crap or what ever else may help them or help them cope with this horrific nightmare then I am like go with it.

I don't have the answer and neither does anyone else otherwise we would not be on this site and I would not be typing this.

I wish you all the luck!
Take care... 

harshedbuzz

AlzKiller-

I am not a prude, but porn can be problematical for someone who doesn't have sound judgement or a social filter. 

Unless someone is right there with them, there is a risk of the PWD finding themselves on an illegal site as the OP was concerned. That could result in a PWD landing on a site that exploits children or people who are being trafficked which could lead to an arrest. My dad lost the ability to access the internet by the time he was diagnosed, but he discussed topics of a sexual nature in public including past scenarios- which may or may not have been true- that would have led to his arrest. We had to limit his leaving the house until that disturbing phase passed.

There is also the risk of the PWD going into sites that require payment and spending money that is needed for essentials and future care needs. Until I put parental controls on their TV, dad went a little nuts with the On Demand and Pay-per-View options available through his cable provider. He blew almost $700 on sports packages (for sports he never watched), kiddie movies and Stingray karaoke one month.

HB

ButterflyWings

Hi Yorklady,

You've gotten some great suggestions here, and sounds like you have disconnected the wifi. Good for you. Also, letting the mysterious "huh", "wonder what happened?" mode kick in, is wise so you are not the bad guy in this. I stopped explaining, asking permission, or taking credit long ago. Why argue with dementia? Dementia won't (can't) agree or understand. Just do what needs to be done and keep a low profile on "how & why" if it is an unpopular decision with someone whose reasoner is broken.

Just weighing in here on your disappointment that maybe this was prior behavior. Maybe not. Does anyone else ever use that computer, like maybe the home helper? Some people don't feel porn websites are problematic, but for PWD, I agree it definitely is. Too much predatory behavior from others on the internet, sorry. We had to change passwords repeatedly until DH lost interest in technology. and also hide the many multiple lists and notes and printouts of codes, websites, etc. my DH kept accessing (not porn, but scammers...fake cures, all kinds of courses or just ways to steal money).

But that site could have originally popped up accidentally. And now that it is in the browsing history, it will easily self populate again just by typing almost any letter into the browser line...I would maybe try deleting those auto-suggestions by clearing the history and any bookmarks. This might not be pre-dementia behavior after all, but also know that our LO's dementia actually starts long before we begin to see signs, so truly "pre-dementia" for your DH and mine (now mid-6) was years and years ago.