My father used to be a very talkative man. He is now 87 years old, and he forgets many things. He repeatedly asks to go home. He wants to plant his garden. My mother was taking care of him until recently when she was trying to get in the car and the door was stuck in the snow bank, and she told him to wait while she shut the door. He didn't wait and knocked her over, breaking her hip. He got out of the car and asked what she was doing on the ground. She told him she had asked him to wait until she shut the door; he yelled at her and said she was lying. He was taking junk mail to his banker thinking it was important papers, and meanwhile, he was throwing the important papers away. He was sending money to everybody that he got junk mail from. Most of the family is quite a distance from my dad and caring for him at home has become impossible for my mother. He doesn't remember from day to day what is going on, doesn't remember to eat, doesn't remember to do his personal cares. Tells everyone that he should still be able to drive but doesn't remember where he lived for 42 years. This is the most awful disease I have had to deal with. How frustrating for him it must be that you know you know something but can't remember it. He has now started to wander away from the assisted-living facility and is angry at everyone. He said his family is out to get him. I only hope the good Lord gives us all the strength to deal with this -- especially my father.

I just came out of a relationship with a 70-year-old man (I am 11 years younger). I am sure he has the beginning symptoms of Alzheimer's and my life/our relationship got drained by it (not that I did not love him, or did not want to take care of him). I started to realize very disturbing patterns early on: yelling fits for no reason, then asking me three days in a row the same question about a building while we were visiting Brussels. When I would say, "I already told you," he would start yelling at me. There were so many other signs: buying the same books (not remembering having it at home), not remembering when pills were taken, not remembering even that a certain book I asked him to read was given to him by one of his best friends for his birthday only a couple of weeks earlier. I reminded him constantly of appointments, calls to make, and where he had placed stuff he could not find. (We lived in the Village in a tiny apartment.) I was a "new" girlfriend, so it was very delicate. I could not talk to his children about this, nor to his brother because he was convinced there was absolutely nothing wrong with him. If I dared bring up the subject, I would receive another yelling fit with abusive language.

My dad has Alzheimer's. His behavior his very reasonable most of the time then he goes and does something like sneak around behind my mother's back and drink vinegar from the cabinet. We don't know how to deal with this new event, so we have decided not to say anything to him and just take the vinegar out of the way. I hate what this is doing to him and I worry that he may think we are treating him like he's a child.