Nasty Comments

Karl38

My wife is in stage 4 ALZ and is otherwise very healthy. So we are out and about and have a limited social life. Lately, if she is unhappy about something she is likely to make a snide comment to a friend or acquaintance. This is embarrassing for me and while I understand the cause it is annoying. Do others have this problem?

fmb

@Karl38

My DH started doing that in about Stage 4 or 5 (he was not yet diagnosed.) I think it is because the social filters that usually keep people from voicing their snarky remarks start to deteriorate. By the time he was in Stage 6, he didn't hesitate to say "A$$hole" loudly enough for everyone around him to hear when another resident was showing undesirable behavior. This other resident was also losing his social filter and would yell at anyone in the special needs dining room who coughed, sneezed, was slouching in their wheelchair, or accidently spilled their drink. Many times I would quietly explain to DH that this other resident's brain didn't work right and he couldn't help yelling at people. Of course this got DH to quiet down only for the moment, but it diffused some potentially difficult situations. As for being embarrassed, I realized that it was both men's dementia that was causing them to act this way, and I considered it like an outburst from a small child who did not know any better.

SDianeL

it’s not her, it’s the disease. No need to be embarrassed. Nothing you can do to change her behavior. Please read the book “The 36 Hour Day” which really helped me after my husbands diagnosis. Eventually we stopped going out.

M1

Hi Karl. The loss of social filters is a real thing, but if she's making snide comments about you, I would be very proactive about that by telling all of your friends and acquaintances (and even people on the street) about her dementia so they know where it's coming from. That takes some getting used to- early on my partner didn't want me to tell anyone, but ultimately I had to for my own survival. Some people even have little cards printed up saying something like "my wife has Alzheimer's, thank you for your patience."

As she progressed my partner had a lot of frustration with what she perceived as my hypervigilance (of course, at that point she had anosognosia and didn't think anything was wrong). The extreme example of this was when she twice told people on the phone that i had left her and she had someone else staying with her. I was sitting right there, but it caused some mild panic and flurries of texts and phone calls.

CampCarol

I have the little cards that M1 mentioned above. I bought them online at Zazzle.com, and they state “The person I’m with has Alzheimer’s. Your patience and kindness is appreciated. Thank you.” Although I don’t believe I’ll be taking him out much longer, they’ve been great in restaurants, grocery stores, etc. I just slip one to whoever we're dealing with, and if DH asks what it is, I tell him it’s a coupon. People have been wonderful in understanding and helping us.

l7pla1w2

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/220064#Comment_220064

My experience with telling people about DW has been good. Sometimes people have already figured it out.

Regarding cards, great suggestion saying "It's a coupon." DW has anosognosia and she's very attuned to slights and unusual behavior from me. She would certainly ask what are those cards.