DH stuck in repetitive behavior

Faith,Hope,Love

Hi Everyone!  I'm new at this and this is my first time on any kind of a message board, so I'm also a little scared.  My DH was diagnosed with FTD last year caused by a severe case of lead poisoning.  I'm his sole caregiver.  Our friends have all drifted away and our families all live quite far from us.  So there's no one to help.  His symptoms (in my opinion) seem to be increasing quite rapidly.  He's still trying to do maintenance around the house but it has me concerned.  For instance, he mowed the lawn on Thursday.  He then wanted to mow it again Friday and today (sat.)  Thank goodness it rained both days and he couldn't.  I've tried to distract him and reason with him but he gets angry and acts out.  Maybe I should just let him mow the lawn?  I know this sounds trivial, but he's so forgetful that it concerns me with him using equipment.  I'm afraid he could get hurt.  Thanks for reading this!

Quilting brings calm

Welcome to the forum.  Don’t worry about messing up here.  We are a friendly and forgiving bunch.  I wouldn’t worry about how much lawn mowing he does - except I would be worried about using a mower period.  Is it the kind that automatically shuts off if he lifts out of the seat, or lets go of the zero turn handles, etc? Is there any slope to the yard? 

I’m not familiar with dementia caused by toxic substances.  Are there additional or unique symptoms or issues due to that- or have you maybe been so busy taking care of him that questions like that haven’t been answered yet? 

Joydean

Hi faith, hope and love. Welcome . You will find more information from the wonderful people on this forum that you will from any doctors or books. Why, because they live with dementia love ones day to day. 

As far as the mowing, I can understand that one. My DH has been the one that has always done most of the heavy yard work. 7 years into Alzheimer’s and he still wants to mow. Some times I just let him ride around on the mower with the blades up. Sometimes he doesn’t remember how to put them down and I’m okay with that. It gives him something to do. It’s better than just sitting. And I know he’s not going to get hurt because if he just lifts himself up the mower will shut off!  Best of luck to you. Others will come along and give you better information. 

Faith,Hope,Love

Thanks for the welcome.  That makes me feel more comfortable here.  As for the mowing, fortunately there's no slope to the yard and it does have an automatic shutoff when he gets off the seat.  But you're right, there's still the issue of it being a mower.  That makes me very nervous.

There are no unique symptoms or issues due to the lead poisoning.  His doctor has been doing IV chelation and oral chelation to try and remove some of the lead from his body.  He says he will probably only be able to get 30 to 50% of the lead out since it's been in him for a long time and is likely buried deep in tissue.  His goal is to stabilize him as much as possible and then try various other treatments.  He's looking into using peptides at this point.

/STEVE

My wife like washing clothes  and vacuum.  I had her make a sign (She still know her writing.) to put on the wash room that she can only do washing on Mon thru Fri and can only vacuum on the weekend.  I can show it to her when she want to do more often. 

 I do not know if something like this can help you.

Faith,Hope,Love

Thanks for the welcome Joydean.  And you are right!  I've already found more information here than any doctor, website or book has given me.  I'm beginning to feel right at home here.  I feel better about just letting him keep mowing.  I'm wondering if I was just trying to get him to behave normally, which he can't.  Maybe I was trying to force something rather than just let him keep mowing.  And you are so right.  At least he's moving around and not just sitting.  Thanks again!!!  I feel so much better about this.

Faith,Hope,Love

Hi Steve.  Great idea.  I already did something similar to that with another problem we had.  We had a door latch that wasn't working.  My DH wanted to get a hammer to fix it.  But, I was able to watch a Youtube video and fix it before he got to the hammer.  But, even though it was fixed, he kept going over to the door and insisting it was broken.  After an hour of this I wrote a note that said this door works.  I took him over to the door and had him try it.  He agreed the door worked and I had him sign the note.  I taped it to the door and it's still there.  It stopped the repetitive insistence that the door was still broken.  Every time he sees it, he starts laughing.  He thinks it's so funny.  I've done that with other things since then, but never thought of doing it with the mowing.  Thanks again!!!  That was a great idea.