(July 7) -- Mark Priddy was just 36 years old when doctors diagnosed him with early-onset Alzheimer's four years ago.
The devastating disease is extremely rare in someone his age, and his wife, Dione, told London's Daily Mail she wishes doctors had found the cause of his bizarre behavior earlier because she would have been "kinder and more patient."
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"Early-onset Alzheimer's is so rare that I can understand why Mark's symptoms went undiagnosed," said Dione, 40. "But if we'd known earlier, we'd all have been saved so much anguish."
The couple, who married in 1997 and live in Britain, have two daughters, ages 11 and 12. Mark's strange behavior started as early as 2002, when he started to panic when his wife left the house, and become forgetful.
His condition worsened, and the once successful real estate agent started to forget business meetings and have terrible mood swings. He was quickly hired and fired from seven different jobs, the Mail reported.
A doctor diagnosed him with depression, but anti-depressants didn't help.
Finally, in 2005, doctors said the problem was Alzheimer's. Two and a half years ago, when he started to take out his frustration with violence, Dione had her husband admitted to a nursing home, where he has lived ever since.
Now 40, he can't speak or care for himself.
Dione said her daughters, Eleanor and Bethany, find some solace in old home videos that show the fun-loving father they want to remember.
"The only sensible, grown-up thing we did was to buy a video camera," she told the Mail. "It's as though we knew we had to live life at 100 miles an hour and record every minute of it, because our time together was going to be so short."
"It's still heartbreaking to see him so ill," she said. "He hasn't said my name for a year and I don't think he understands that I am his wife. But we enjoyed more happiness when he was well than many people do in a lifetime."
