My spouse can’t stop eating.

welcome to the forum. A lot of people with dementia (assuming he had it) lose their food cues- they forget when they’ve eaten, and can’t sense satiety or hunger either. There’s probably not a lot you can do to control it, especially if he still goes out. Raises the question of whether he should be driving-but that’s another story. The only way you will get control is when you are the sole food provider.

That ordering online is a scary thing in terms of what it can do to your budget.

I'll repeat advice i was given with my DB. Make sure a durable power of attorney is in place and a health care directive. You can do this through a CELA (a certified elder law attorney). Your specific situation will dictate whether, you an offspring, sibling or other person should fill this role. From what you describe as lack of impulse control and likely loss of executive function suggests it's time for someone else to manage the budget. This would include the CC attached to his online shopping.

Do you manage the family finances? Do you have visibility into all of your bank accounts, cc accounts and investment accounts? My brother recently gave me 'the keys to kingdom" (his password vault). I've helped them dig out of a hole they got into before they realized he needed to seek help for the brain fog he had been experiencing for years.

It seems this won't be easy, but it will be necessary.

@bonlou

A couple of random thoughts—

It could be your husband has progressed into dementia which involves significant losses beyond memory. Early on, many neurologists and most PCPs will give a new patient a diagnosis of MCI or a vague "memory loss" taking a wait and see approach before changing it to dementia in a year or so.

Those losses with dementia include things like reasoning/executive function (cause and effect), decision making, impulse control, apathy, and loss of empathy. This may be playing into this behavior.

As PWD lose their ability to initiate and/or enjoy activities they used to, some will turn to "treats" as entertainment. The shopping and ordering may also be entertainment for him.

Poor impulse control and reasoning would lead to a choice of chips over carrot sticks despite the health consequences. And inertia would pick whatever is easiest— if by "healthy food in the house" means preparing himself something rather than grabbing a sleeve of crackers, he's going to pick the crackers every time. You might be able to work around this by creating pre-made snacks ready to go left where he can see them. Or not.

If this behavior has become a topic of disagreement between you, his continued choice to prioritize junk food over healthy options may be rather like a 4-year-old exclaiming "you're not the boss of me!". My dad did this with the wine he wasn't supposed to have.

You could shut it down by stopping the excursions to shop and limiting his access to the internet/money/cards but you probably aren't there yet. I would warn that both cars and the internet are not safe place for PWD to be. In both scenarios, your financial future is on the line.

HB

Same problem here and so appreciate all the info given. My DH is diabetic and I had to quit buying sugar free cookies and ice cream because I couldn’t control the frequency and amount he was eating. He gets up at night and eats then too. The greatest problem is hiding refrigerated food. Even though we buy healthy things like yogurt, he will devour anything in sight to excess. I block entrance to our kitchen at night by placing chairs and a small table with large bells on it and signs saying no eating. If he moves the barricade I can hear him and intervene. None of this is easy because we are both 83 and use walkers. I slide 3 chairs to block the entrance but the photo below shows only one. So far it is working. It is a bother to set up every night and take apart in the morning but we caregivers jump through hoops all the time don’t we?