Paranoia

Lgb35

DH is 62 and still working. He is constantly telling me that nobody at work talks to him and that I am making life decisions without him. He also is saying our adult sons don’t talk to him and our grandson that lives with us is different. Our grandson has not changed his interactions with DH. Is this paranoia? Is this part of the disease? He is at the mild dementia stage. We are getting an amyloid PET scan on Tuesday.

SDianeL

welcome. Sorry about your DH’s diagnosis. Paranoia is a form of delusion which is very common in those with dementia. No way to be sure it’s the disease or just anxiety due to him not understanding what’s happening. This may help: https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/dementia-paranoia#is-paranoia-a-symptom

Iris L.

If he has any employee benefits, such as sick time or disability benefits, it will be a good idea to begin looking into them. If he gets fired for poor performance he could lose all of his benefits.

Iris

Quilting brings calm

please have your doctor put him on medical leave. Investigate the possibility of long term disability benefits.

Your grandson may not have changed how he interacts with him- but his coworkers probably have. If they have noticed changes in his behavior, they are probably pulling away from him

harshedbuzz

@Lgb35

One aspect of the dementias is the preservation of emotional intelligence well into the last stages of the disease. While paranoia is a common dementia experience, it does not necessarily rule out the possibility that others are treating him differently.

In the very early stages of dementia, my dad's personality made a turn to the dark side, and he also lost his social filter. He blew though his social group here, so he and mom retired to the beach where he burned through a second group in a year or two. He had a tendency to say the thing aloud that should have stayed in his head and was obnoxious with servers.

His interactions with my son changed, too. He was irritated by my decisions regarding DS at times; he sold his boat to spite us when DS couldn't come down as much over the summer because he was attending a special year-round reading school and special camp. Other times he told DS crazy conflated stories about me doing all sorts of awful things either his sister or mine actually did. Neither my son nor DH needed that in their lives, so I left them happily home when I visited for a couple years.

Regarding the coworkers, it's possible they've picked up on some incompetence and are picking up slack or even covering for him. One thing I noticed about my dad in the middle stages of the disease was that conversations with multiple people were just beyond him. It took a lot of time and bandwidth to understand what was going on which meant he couldn't participate meaningfully which was difficult has he'd been the life-of-the-party. He was OK one-on-one/two up until he died, but beyond that he was frustrated and felt left out.

I 100% endorse the advice to start LT disability/SSDI to preserve benefits asap.

HB

Iris L.

If he's been there a long time, it might be a good idea to arrange a small retirement party or dinner, showing appreciation for his years of work. This might get him to accept retirement rather than saying, you have to quit because you have dementia. He has anosognosia so he is not aware of having dementia or what is going on around him with the other people. You will have to use your judgement as to how to proceed.

Iris

DWofDH

If he has group disability available through work, get on that now. Do not wait as if he is terminated before starting any leave, he will lose it. Worst case have him request ADA accommodations, then go on FMLA, to short term and then long term disability. If there is no group disability, file for SSDI, I hear it takes quite some time and most are denied first time around. Ask about any medical pension, PTO payouts, etc.