Enriching a Life with Dementia

It has been 2 years since my husband, Dave, 59, was officially diagnosed with frontotemporal dementia (FTD)and it has taken me this long to write about our experiences. We have been married for 31 years and our life has changed dramatically in a very short period. Before I begin a series of stories and tips on how Dave and I have enriched our life despite dementia, I wanted to share a 2 Part post on what I have learned about Frontotemporal Dementia. It will help you to understand why Dave, or someone you know with dementia, talk and act the way they do.

 If you have never heard of  FTD, you aren’t alone. Our neurologist had to do some research before he could give us the definitive diagnosis. The test results, including the CT scan, showed that Dave fit somewhere under the umbrella of early onset Alzheimer’s, but he didn’t fit the classsic profile. Dave was still okay with numbers and sense of direction, but had problems with pictures, such as identifying animals, and with words-he didn’t know the meaning of many common words, like ‘tree’.

Frontotemporal Dementia affects the front half of the brain, while Alzheimer’s usually affects the back half where memory is stored. FTD, like other dementias, will affect each person a little differently. Generally in FTD, the frontal lobes, which are responsible for our personality, judgment and social manners and the temporal lobes, responsible for language, are the first 2 areas affected. When the doctor showed us Dave’s CT scan, there were large blackened areas in both of his temporal (side) lobes. He explained that as the brain dies, the body fills those spaces with fluid. For a quick moment, I had hopes that maybe the surgeons could drain the fluid, alleviating some of  Dave’s headaches or even slowing down his disease. Unfortunately that wasn’t an option.

In my next post, I will share Part 2 on What is Frontotemporal Dementia? If you would like to share any information that you have, I would love to read it.