Safety when cooking

s_broome · January 6

My 76 yr. old DH is becoming more and more forgetful. He has several of the symptoms of cognitive impairment. He hasn't been tested or diagnosed yet but agreed to have me attend his next medical appt. in February. I've told him I'm noticing more instances of forgetfulness, which he'll accept for the moment, but doesn't remember a short time later. Most of his symptoms are manageable so far, but today he left the stovetop on high after cooking a grilled cheese sandwich while I was gone. I came home to find a very hot kitchen and the burner was on (maybe an hour). What suggestions do you have, if any, to increase his safety when cooking If I'm gone? He isn't ready yet to accept from me that his forgetfulness is abnormal or suggestions from me not to cook at all. I thought maybe he would be willing to use a timer if he decides to cook again. Sharon

M1 · January 6

Welcome to the forum sharon. This is a huge red flag and wake up call for you,, I'm glad he didn't start a fire. The short answer is that there is no safe alternative. You either need to not leave him alone, or disable the stove so that he can't use it, such as taking the knobs off and hiding them or locking them up. You may need to plan your trips away from mealtimes, leave him a prepared (cold) meal, or have someone come in to stay with him. Sorry, but there are no easy answers here. You definitely need to report this to his doctor too. Usually the changes we witness in our loved ones are so gradual that we as family members tend to overestimate their abilities and underestimate their degree of impairment. Report everything you've witnessed to his docs, many times it helps to do this in writing so that the doctors can review it before the appointment. Read up about anosognosia-most people with dementia have it and don't realize they're impaired.

Dio · January 6

Please heed M1's advice. My grandma was boiling water which dried up and the tea kettle burned to a pulp...she couldn't smell nor notice the burn. The whole house stunk and the burn smell got into clothing inside closets, and just all over. It was definitely a wake up call for my parents! It was lucky that the house didn't burn down with grandma in it.

Ed1937 · January 6

Welcone aboard, Sharon. This is a good forum, but sorry you need it. When my wife lost the ability to cook, whenever she would pick up a utensil or turn a burner on, I'd gently take the utensil out of her hand, or turn the burner off, telling her she did enough cooking in her life (but I had to keep an eye on her). It was time for someone else to do the cooking now. It worked, and it's something you might keep in mind for the future.

Phoenix1966 · January 7

Welcome aboard, sorry to see you need to be here.

I made a really rookie mistake when my grandmother started letting the water boil down in the kettle. Thinking she’d be fine cooking and still living alone if only she had the “right tools”, I bought her a pretty simplistic electric kettle. Problem solved, right? If she forgot about it, the device simply turned off. And it worked great right up until it didn’t.

I got a midnight call from her while the fire department was still there clearing the air. Panicked, she told me she’d burned the kettle up. And what she had done was set the electric kettle with its plastic coated base onto the stove and heated it up from there.

Thankfully, the professionally monitored smoke detectors did their job. When I went to see her the next morning, with the burned electric kettle in sight, she explained that the firemen told her it was the “faulty wires in the wall” that smoked up the house. Her mind fixed the truth for her so it wasn’t a mistake she had made.

Needless to say, that was the end of her living on her own.

Pat6177 · January 7

Some stoves have the ability to lock the stovetop. Check your owner's manual. My gas stove doesn’t allow me to lock the stovetop but the oven controls can be locked. And most microwave controls can be locked. Then start using fiblets to your DH about why the stove or microwave aren’t working. Blew a fuse or something.

charley0419 · January 7

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/193823#Comment_193823

Very very sound information, I agree on all.

harshedbuzz · January 7

Short answer? Take either him or the knobs with you next time.

I'm sorry you find yourself in this spot. It's a difficult place to be where you're seeing things but don't yet have a firm dx from which to plan. What @M1 said.

Another Band-aid option for disabling an electric model range is to throw the 220-line circuit breaker assigned to the range if you need to go out without him. This is your wake-up call that a more comprehensive safety plan is needed to restrict his participation in IADLs (things like money management and driving) and supervision around some of his ADLs (like adjusting the temp of his shower so he doesn't scald himself or going for a walk alone)

With my dad, the anosognosia was such that while was aware of his short-term memory loss, he had no clue what that limited his autonomy. And he was blissfully unaware of the losses around executive function, spatial reasoning or even empathy that are impacted quite early in the disease process.

Ahead of your appointment, I would write a bulleted list of concerns for the PCP and ask that a screening be done at the appointment. If you can send it via the patient portal do that. Otherwise, drop/mail a copy to be given to the doctor and bring one along to pass to the tech who checks you in asking them to get the doc to read it before coming in. This will avoid the need to throw your husband under the bus during the appointment. Another tactic I used was to sit behind dad in sight-line of his doctors so I could non-verbally communicate whether what dad was reporting was factual or not.

Good luck in February. Any chance you could get in sooner?

HB

Safety when cooking

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