How much care is too much? When should I leave my husband do things himself when I see that he is confused?

Luanne30, that is hard. And one answer doesn't fit all situations. In general it is best to allow someone to do for themselves the things they can do. If he wants a glass of orange juice and he can safely walk to the fridge where it is kept, and pour it into a glass, and carry the glass, then it is good to encourage that rather than to always bring him the glass. On the other hand, if you are worried about his hydration level, then bringing him beverages throughout the day is probably a better bet than letting him just never bother to go get a drink.

Hmm ... I don't think I am helping. Sorry.

Another consideration is what are the consequences if he does something wrong or takes forever to do it? Usually it didn't matter how long my husband took to dress himself. But if we had to be somewhere on time, then I helped a lot.

I always thought it important to have some activities for my husband to engage in. He went to an adult day program a couple of days a week. I highly recommend that! He also bowled with a senior league that seemed to love him and look after him, and golfed with a group of people with various handicaps, sponsored by a rehab center. He did watch a lot of videos and some tv when he was home, but that was not all he did. It is a balance between pushing beyond their capabilities, and finding some things of interest to do.

I think this is really a hard call, especially since so many men have throughout their lives felt the need to be the "do-er" and don't want to, or aren't comfortable admitting they no longer can do things they've done for years.

I too have difficulty figuring out what can be done vs. what can't be done and what isn't considered as important as I think it is.

Sometimes it helps to just offer to help for efficiency purposes - i.e., "if we do this together, it'll give us time to (a) go for a walk (b) get a Dairy Queen (c) go shopping (d) wander around a man cave...."

If the answer is that my help isn't needed, but the task doesn't get done, that's when I usually suggest helping. That allows me to determine whether my help really is needed because of cognition issues.

I think these are some of the "trial and error" issues of caregiving; there are no right answers and no really good ways other than item by item experimentation to determine whether or not the task doesn't get done because it isn't important to him, or he can't do it and isn't comfortable admitting it.

I usually try to let my husband do things on his own for a little while. But must admit I'm not real good at not jumping in. He always asks what he can do to "help" but doesn't do what I tell him. SoSometimes just looks at me like he's angry, even though he asked me. Other times he says "I can do that" but next thing I know he's watching t.v. or asleep in the recliner. If I start to do whatever it was he said he would do he thinks I'm "stubborn". So I would say if he was really struggling with something and didn't get upset if I offered help, I would help him. If my husband gets upset with me I would just walk away for awhile. Hard call. Depends on the reaction we get.