Alzheimer's Disease Support Group
Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the most common cause of dementia and characterized by progressive cognitive deterioration with declining activities of daily living and neuropsychiatric symptoms or behavioral changes. An early symptom is memory loss (amnesia), usually manifesting as minor forgetfulness that becomes pronounced with illness progression, with relative...
How do you all manage to talk to your loved ones doctor? I find this to be kind of frustrating because my husband is ALWAYS present. I feel that I could have more meaningful discussions with his doctor if he wasn't present. I feel like I have tip toe and walk on egg shells because I can't just come right out and say, "my husband does this or my husband does that" because my husband gets really upset and embarrassed. "I don't do that. " He will say.
For example I just contacted his doctor to leave a message about his recent development of hallucinations. So I get the nurse and she is asking me questions. I try to walk out of the room quietly and discreetly and I describe to her what I want the doctor to know. After I am done I turn around and there his is standing behind me, "Who are you talking to?"
For example I just contacted his doctor to leave a message about his recent development of hallucinations. So I get the nurse and she is asking me questions. I try to walk out of the room quietly and discreetly and I describe to her what I want the doctor to know. After I am done I turn around and there his is standing behind me, "Who are you talking to?"
On the other hand our doctors know both of us fairly well so they will ask Neal questions about how he is feeling and what he thinks is going on then they will turn to me and ask "so o.k. how is he really doing"?
After I tell them what I see they will often ask Neal if he thinks I'm right and many times he will say no but if I say he's doing something then he will believe me even if he doesn't see it himself and so do his doctors and Neal knows that I will do my best to protect his interests so he never fights about what I tell his doctors.
There are times though when I do have to get "tough" with the doctors, when they do not hear what I'm telling them. Like the problem we had with his depression, body pain and not sleeping well. I kept telling his doctor these were issues and he kept telling me that he had perscribed something for that. Finaly I had to get very stern and tell him that what he perscribed was not working, had not been working and he needed to find something else that would work or we would be finding another doctor.