My wife started displaying classic Alzeimer's symtoms about 2 years ago. She was 63 years old. We were both extremely active. I was 66 years old at that time, still working at a relatively high profile job and;was somewhat reluctant (or refused) to recognize the signs let alone act on them! In that regard, I probably wasn't different from a lot of others who've had to initially recognize and manage this terrible illness.

It took considerable time, and an awfull lot of patience on my part, for her to acknowledge there was an issue. Eventually, she consulted her family doctor, was subsequently evaluated by Nova Scotia health care professionals and diagonised in the early stages of the illness.

I am now a full time care giver. The most dramatic change has been an almost complete loss of short term memory and her inability to complete even the simplist of tasks without careful and very patient supervision.

Nonetheless, I have decided to challenge her with many and varied tasks, if for no other reason, than to "force" her to use her brain. On a lighter note, it probably took me some 40 years to learn patience! Suffice to say, I have had to "learn patience" all over again!!

While I have no pretentious grandure of even having her return to a "normal" extisence; we still participate in many of the activities which we used to do prior to the onset of the illness. Typically; she constantly reads, participates in cross-country skiing, walks some 3-5 kilometers each day; and, travels with me several times annually.