Sometimes words and attitudes that you never saw before in your parent spray forth and shock you. What shocks you more is your growing lack of patience, of understanding, of comprehension. There are many reasons for the attitude that your parent's is showing. Some call it resistance, other's call it reluctance, some see it as pure defiance. I prefer to think of it as an individual's attempt to hold onto the sense of authority over his own life.
Most people cling to their independence.
Especially in the early stages of memory loss, there is a great deal of denial on both sides. Your parent or aging relative does not want to accept what is happening and may not even be fully aware of his or her decline. For the person who is losing his or her faculties, the experience is nothing less than terrifying. You need to begin the process of caring giving for someone with memory loss by accepting that there are changes going on and that the changes are both frightening and fill both the victim of the disease and the caregiver with an array of emotions that spread from grief, to anger, to guilt and to rage. You might be infuriated and scared at what is occurring and the fact that your suggestions for controlling the situation go unheeded can make you feel as if a difficult situation that you are trying to handle is being blocked at every step.