My husband has early onset dementia and anasognia, doesn’t believe he has Alzheimer's. What should I do?

Be sure that he isn't allowed to manage his own money / bank accounts.
You do not mention whether or not he is medically diagnosed, although you say: " he 'definitely has Alzheimers' so I presume you have medical documentation.

If you haven't done so already, take medical documentation/letters to bank, financial institutions so you can manage.

It sounds like he needs 24/7 placement in a locked facility.
When you say you 'tell him,' re bank accounts, this tells me that you do not understand what dementia / Alz is and/or do not know how to speak / respond / communicate with a person who does.
- Google Teepa Snow, one of the country's leading experts on dementia.
She has excellent You Tubes, webinars and shows (videos) how to speak / communicate with a person inflicted with dementia.

You do not talk 'logic.'

The key / goal is to:

* Keep the person as calm as possible.
* Do not argue; it only causes more emotional / psychological upset and exhausts all concerned.
* Do tell him: "I'll check into it." ... "Thank you for telling me ..."
* Yes, he may continue to repeat himself several times a day or however often . He doesn't realize he is doing this.
* Make sure that he can't be calling people on his phone that might be scammers or financial institutions.

I don't know how you've been managing on your own.
I wouldn't leave him alone at all. I question why you are leaving him alone.

I do not understand when you say you 'can leave in a hurry and come back sometime later ..." this is very unsafe for him. He could leave the house, walk or perhaps even drive (if he has access to any car), or walk the streets thinking another woman is his wife and start to engage her (in some frightening ways - I have seen this). Obviously, he could get lost.

If he was in a facility, he could participate in group activities if he wants to - I've worked with a client in a closed memory care division.

If he is going to be home for a while, I strongly suggest that you get caregivers in to be with him, when you are gone.

I would get yourself on a schedule of 'off hours' or 'off days' so you can get a bit of a respite - renew time / a little time for yourself. You need this.

This is very hard on a spouse (anyone, esp a spouse).

I am concerned that he might get / respond in a violent manner, depending on how his brain processes information and what he 'think's or sees happening, i.e., he may think he is protecting you by physically engaging in ways that could cause you harm. You do say '... hoping the dilemma has cooled down ...His mental fortitude seems to be declining."

Leaving and hoping is a major red flag. You do not want to wait for something more 'serious' to happen before you either have another with him and/or get him in a place with more ongoing supervision.

If I were you, I would call nursing homes or facilities and start looking at placement. I presume all the medical documentation is in order based on the information you share.

Hoping he 'stays in this state" tells me that you do not realize his brain will continue to change, he will continue to lose brain cells. I know you want hope. However, you need to understand how his brain is changing / has changed.

Do not wait for something to happen.
Educate yourself now.
Get legal advice if needed.
Ensure that he cannot call institutions, buy anything on-line, have access to credit cards.

Gena / Touch Matters

A few things. First, pay attention to Alvadeer. Her advice is frank but usually spot on. Second, consider turning off your husband’s phone service. He can still use it with the Internet but scammers won’t be able to call. You could maybe get him the type of service that lets you control calls coming in and going out like for small children.
Third, get your finances in order to protect yourself. Move the money so he has no access but consider letting him “pay the bills” by writing checks from the closed account and letting you”mail” them for him. You might also get a ledger for him to use to do this. If he feels useful, he will feel less frustrated. (This comes from the director of my mom’s memory care facility as advice to a friend).
You now have a full grown toddler that you can’t discipline. It sucks and I’m sorry for you but this is the truth. You wouldn’t explain dementia to a toddler and you wouldn’t allow them to handle money or other important decisions.

The advice to start looking at facilities and talking with an elder care attorney is spot on. Do this immediately. I have one in Houston Texas who spent at least 1 1/2 hours on the phone explaining things to me BEFORE I paid him anything at all.
You can also get legal “insurance” for about $15 a month that will help with paperwork and discount some services. Look up Legal Shield on the Internet.

I wish you the very best and I’m sorry you have to face this.

Put blocks on his iPhone like you would with an older child to protect them. Start shifting money into accounts he cannot access. (When we sold our house I invested the money in both of our names and told him this, but he doesn’t have access to that account. I will be moving some of our major assets into an irrevocable trust so that it is available for his care if I predecease him, but he can’t be coerced into giving it away.). If he is still driving, get a letter from his doctor saying he has Alzheimer’s and send it to your state motor vehicle administration asking them to revoke his license. Prioritize making plans for his long-term care as well as your own. Your husband sounds like he is much too far along for you to discuss what you are doing. Make sure all of your paperwork is in order so that you can get him into residential care even if he refuses. If you have kids together or separately, you need to sit down with them and let them know what the plans are. Make sure there is a back up person you can trust if you get seriously ill and can’t manage care for either or both of you. Build a support system for yourself not just your husband. Dementia is a process. It always gets worse. Pray for the best and plan for the worst.

Now we need to know who your support medical team is for hubby.
Clearly, if this is Alzheimer's then it is early onset which tends to progress much more quickly and tends to be much more difficult to control.
You need help, and he may need placement.

First trip is to his own doctor, tell him the problems you are facing and that soon they will not be controllable for you. That he may soon need placement.
You are going to need early retirement for him and disability until he can qualify for Medicare. This means you are going to need GOOD diagnostic workup with letter from TWO MDs regarding his inability to safely do executive functioning in his own behalf.

I think that you need a trip to the Elder Law Attorney. You are in trouble here in so far as costs of all this. You soon will need him on Medicaid and he will unfortunately need to keep emergently whatever insurance he has. You may need a nurse manager.

All of this including his now needing 24/7 care is going to mean a whole lot of money.
You cannot afford to have your OWN finances and savings completely ruined by the fact your husband has such a severe and dire diagnosis. You may need division of assets. Whether anyone ELSE knows it, and given you won't be leaving him, you may STILL require a legal divorce to protect your own assets. I have seen this happen first hand with a friend/acquaintance whose wife went into permanent vegetative coma at an early age, leaving him with two small children to raise.

So this is major trouble that is going to require the VERY BEST of professional care from MD, Neuro-psyc MD, Elder Law attorney, social workers.
I am so very sorry. The fact he is obsessed with his phones puts him in sort of a teen realm, but his co-workers are going to have to know the skivvy here and block his phone number; afraid you will need to be very frank with them when you have the diagnosis.

We DO have several wives VERY ACTIVE on this site dealing with their husbands diagnoses and I hope they will reach out to you. They may have good info. I cannot imagine what you must be going through.

Please have your husband go to your local Adult Daycare Center. He can go up to 5 days a week and 8 hours a day.
There is a cost of course, but if money is an issue they do offer financial help and if your husband is a veteran they pay for some as well.
And it is worth every penny as they keep the folks occupied throughout the day with lots of different activities, and offer breakfast, lunch and a snack. Plus they have a spa day where they will shower your loved one and cut their hair and shave them if needed.
And since your husband doesn't believe that he has dementia, you can just tell him that they need volunteers to help out at the center to get him to go.

There are no easy answers when dealing with a loved one with dementia, but at this point with your husband I don't think that I would be leaving him home alone anymore.
If it gets where you feel threatened or unsafe, just call 911, and have your husband taken to the hospital if needed.
Dementia sucks...that's a fact and I'm sorry that you are yet one more person dealing with this horrific disease.
Please take care of yourself.

Don’t try to remind him or convince him that he has dementia. It’s wasted effort.

My dad also had an obsession with money and wanting to control it. He had been in charge of the finances before he got dementia so it wasn’t surprising that he wanted to keep that control afterward also. Even though his brain no longer worked right and he made a lot of disastrous financial decisions before we took the control away from him.

I want to caution you about real and fake charities and scammers. My dad also started giving money to almost any charity that asked. He was a sucker for anything they sent in the mail like stickers, calendars, coins. Given that your husband can still use a phone, I would be on alert about him getting calls and texts from scammers. Make sure you can log into your bank accounts, credit cards, and keep an eye on them.

Please talk to his doctor, neurologist, whomever diagnosed him. He may benefit from meds to calm down problematic behaviors. Also, they may have a social worker on staff and/ or suggestions about adult day care or other options in your area to give you a break from caring from him around the clock. Respite care may also be an option. You need breaks. I am so sorry he was diagnosed at 63. He could live decades longer and you need to think about how you are going to cope with his decline without sacrificing your own life and chances of happiness going forward. Best wishes

Has your husband seen his PCP recently to rule out any possible causes for his behaviors other than Alz? If it is his Alz, the doctor or the affiliated hospital social worker should have resources available. You can also call the Alzheimer’s Association directly. They are very helpful and can hook you up with a local support group and educational materials.

In my experience (and everyone’s is different) dementia behaviors are a little like waves on the beach - sometimes it’s stormy, sometimes it’s calm, but the ocean never goes away and the tide is always changing.

You say, "I get up early and get dressed in the event this happens and he becomes delusional, if so, I can leave in a hurry and come back sometime later, hoping the dilemma has cooled down.." Leaving your husband alone if he becomes delusional is a bad idea. Call 911 if he becomes irrational or unmaneagable and have him taken to the ER for a psych evaluation. He can be prescribed medication to calm him down, most likely.

Since you realize he has anosognosia, you understand some things about Alzheimer's. Go to alz.org for lots more good information. And pick up a copy of the book Understanding the Dementia Experience by Jennifer Ghent-Fuller on Amazon. It's an excellent, plain English book that should help you process what DH is going through.

He may need Memory Care Assisted Living at some point if he becomes unmanageable at home. He's not going to "stay in this state" as all dementias progress. Alzheimer's is one of the slower progressing dementias, however. Look into adult daycare in your area to keep Jim occupied and out of your hair for most of the day. That would free you up to go out and do things! Also look into hiring aides to come in and give you respite.

Best of luck with a difficult situation.