Functional Cognitive Disorder

yojo

I have a spouse that suffers with this and I am learning how to navigate this process with him. How can you help a spouse learn new things, but also want to make sure you have the patience to help them during the process.

sandwichone123

Learning new things is tough. That's one reason that so many well-meaning suggestions fall flat. Someone will suggest this new, simplified, easy-to-learn gadget, but once brain changes are noticeable it's really hard for them to learn new, things.

What we end up doing, rather than teaching skills, is taking over responsibilities. Even though FCD isn't expected to progress like Alzheimer's does, I would recommend seeing an elder attorney as soon as possible to get a durable power of attorney and power of attorney for healthcare for each of you (you should name someone else as your POA), and wills.

yojo

Thank you for the reply. It is very helpful!

It does make sense to take over the responsibilities. It is less stressful, except when your spouse does not understand why you are doing it instead of showing him how to do it.

sandwichone123

True. It often works best to take things over quietly. I know it's not where you are now, but one thing I read that was helpful to me was to cut up the food in the prep rather than on his plate, so it isn't clear to him that you're cutting up his food. I think that can apply to so much we do matter-of-factly, without drawing attention to the fact that they're not doing it any more.

harshedbuzz

@yojo

Hi and welcome. I am sorry for your reason to be here but pleased you found this place.

I was unfamiliar with Functional Cognitive Disorder and had to google the term which led to an NIH piece describing it. It seems as though this condition is somewhat different in that short term memory would likely be reliable enough for teaching a new skill but that the skill, once taught, might not be accessible to your DH consistently.

When we were trying to teach dad new information early on in his disease (mixed dementia), it was suggested to us to use a method known as errorless teaching.

https://eatspeakthink.com/7-tips-maximize-errorless-learning-for-moderate-severe-memory-loss/

HB

yojo

@harshedbuzz

Thank you for the information about errorless teaching. This is something new and I will have to dive a little deeper into. I appreciate your help during this process.

yojo

@sandwichone123

It is so nice to be able to receive helpful information during an uncomfortable process. Thank you!

Iris L.

Speaking as a person who used to have a diagnosis of cognitive impairment NOS, I have a few comments about trying to get a memory-impaired person to remember. I read the article that HB linked and it sounds great for a normal person. In my case, I will use this analogy about my short term memory loss. It's like when you do a long homework assignment on your computer and close the document without saving it. The entire document and all your work is completely lost! The same with what I spent a long time memorizing. It was lost, because my memory-impaired brain could not "save" the information.

In my case, medication and other treatments have enabled me to have a better short term memory. But my short term memory is not back to 100%.

The article goes on to talk about environmental modification and learning caregiving. This is what we call work-arounds. IMO, it is futile to keep pushing a memory-impaired person to "try" to remember, because they just can't. If they remember at 5 minutes, they've forgotten by 10 minutes. Frustration for both the memory-impaired person and the person trying to teach. In my case, I was embarrassed in front of people when I tried to remember but couldn't. I learned to use a lot of work-arounds and modifications on my own, many learned from the members here, to help myself.

Iris