My 66-year-old husband is becoming steadily more moody. Especially in the evening, after a long day, he may very suddenly become withdrawn, very irritable, and he then shouts, calls me names, slams a few doors, and thus ends the evening.

He has also had some episodes of confusion or forgetting. I used to joke that this was brain fog, but there are time periods when he doesn't really seem to be there and has trouble doing much of anything.

Yesterday he began telling me something about Dick Chaney, but he kept repeating the name "Oakley Cheney," a higher-level exec he'd had problems with at work decades ago. I kept telling him I couldn't understand what he meant, and he got increasingly irritated with me. When I realized he was talking about an entirely different person and told him so, he tried to excuse his mistake. An hour or so later, I talked to him about a good friend of ours who lives in Beverly Hills. He said that Arlette might find it difficult to leave Berkeley, and I said that she didn't live anywhere near Berkeley. Then I asked him where Berkeley was, and he mumbled something about "over there on the West Side," which made me realize he was talking about UCLA, which, admittedly, is not too far from Beverly Hills, but since we have lived in the LA area for 16 years, this mix-up seemed quite odd. Once again, he made excuses and tried to tell me that I made mistakes, too.

He has also had a few blow-ups with colleagues at work which had some basis in reality but were, in my opinion, way out of proportion.

So I welcome any comments on whether this is normal aging or possibly early Alzheizers or another dementia.

Angie

Orange County, CA