Can someone help me figure out how to convince my wife to work with me on detecting and establishing

dmcl

My wife’s father passed away 10 years ago from ALZ after struggling and declining for almost two decades from his first diagnosis at age 63. My wife is now 63 and I believe she is beginning to show similar symptoms as her father had: increased agitation, declining ability with time/dates/money, irritation. Memory is still OK, but increasing reliance on retelling old stories and less ability and interest in integrating new information into her daily life. 

 

She’s terrified she will go the way of her dad. So terrified she gets extremely angry at anyone who suggests she could get a baseline medical test of her memory and cognititve capabilities. She just wants to avoid the issue. When I have brought it up she gets very angry with me.

 

Does anyone have any ideas on how I can help her?

M1

Welcome to the forum dmcl.  So sorry you are going through this, but you've found a good place for support.

I thought the same thing when my partner started showing signs, but there was no convincing her, and she also got extremely mad at me.  There is a condition called anosognosia which is part of the disease, and is the inability to recognize deficits.  It's common.  

I was convinced our trusted internist could test her, tell her the diagnosis and show her that she needed help--he laughed at me.  It may vary by personality to some extent, but my partner refused to accept that there was anything wrong until very late in her course (and still refuses for the most part, though she is now recently in memory care).  Most on this forum will tell you the same, more than 50% of people with dementia have anosognosia.

The only thing that occurs to me:  There was a NOVA program recently on family research into Alzheimers, and it was a Wisconsin study that follows affected family members serially, like you are suggesting.  I don't know if appealing to her "to help others" altruistically would get you anywhere:  tell her it's important for future research, since she's aware of what happened to her father.  It's just a thought.  I'm sure you could find the NOVA program on PBS Passport or something similar, and you might google Wisconsin family study on Alzheimer's, there are probably links out there.

Good luck, this is a very difficult path for all of us.

toolbeltexpert

Dmcl welcome to the forum your topic is why I am responding, there is no reasoning with a pwd,m1 mentioned some of the side affects. They have a broken reasoner.  It sounds like your dw is well into it and you'll  find lots of good advice here.

dmcl

Thank you M1, I really appreciate your response and will look further in to anosognpsia. Feels like a relief to have a place and community to ask.

dmcl

Thx toolbeltexpert, appreciate the support

Stuck in the middle

Some people keep journals in which they describe symptoms and declining ability.  Yours could begin with what you told us, and you could add to it at regular intervals with what you observe as time goes on.  It's not the same as a series of tests, because no numbers are generated, but might actually be more valuable in answering questions such as "What can she do?"  and "How much help does she need?"

Other things can cause symptoms such as those you describe.  It might be good to schedule a physical exam to check for things such as Vitamin D deficiency.  If the doctor can slip in a depression screen and a 20-question test of memory such as the SLUMS as part of a routine physical, so much the better.

Good luck.  I hope she has something treatable.