Confusion between TV and reality

[Madhouse]

Thanks everyone for the replies - I had done a search for television but it didn't show anything up so had missed the one you mentioned Holly. It certainly gave me insight and a few laughs.

I support Mum by phone which makes managing this quite tricky.

Mum has two handsets for her tv which I have had to put cardboard sleeves on with only small sections showing and with bright coloured stick on dots as sometimes the carers switch the tv off on a handset and Mum can't manage to put it on unless she turns it on and off on the top of the set. If they get it wrong then its "handset no 2 and press the gold button in the top right corner - just one press and let go - don't hold it down. Has the red band gone? is it blue now? and now the programme started?" Sometimes I can't hear the programme as Mum is breathing heavily into the phone and so I have to ask her to move the phone away so I can hear - but then she forgets to put it back to speak or sometimes I think she enjoys letting me share the sound of her tv. I am laughing as I write this but one time she took so long to put the phone to her ear again that the programme she wanted had finished!

That is now the limit of her using the remotes as she used to change channels but she has freesat and a heavy thumb so I would have to sit on the phone getting her to change the channel and I would listen and then look up the schedule to work out which programme it was! I grew to hate adverts and regional variations!

Now Mum just has it on BBC 2 for the majority of the time and I ask the carers to change it to BBC 1 when its something like the Jubilee or Athletics as I have to know the schedule off by heart to remind her of times when I ring from work etc. Luckily we don't have to worry about ITV as ages ago she and I decided most of the programmes on there were common! lol.

The irony of it all is I don't have a TV myself as I watched it so little - I gave it up and now watch the occasional thing on iPlayer!

Oh how this is all so familiar to me!! When tv went digital last year it confused my mum so much. Suddenly she had 2 remote controls so we too stuck bits of paper over certain buttons and when she used to ring up saying she had a blue screen, what should she do, I would try and explain over the phone - 'pick up the new remote control, press such and such button in the top corner, what do you see? - etc etc' She never did get the hang of it at all and so would just leave it on the same channel all the time which was quite sad really. Now she's in the home they have different tv programmes on in different lounges and I don't miss those phone calls at all!!

[tre]

My husband also has this problem with TV or radio. Any violence frightens him and if there is talk about famine or killings he looks anxious and asks me how it will impact on him. At least I am here all the time so I can switch off unsuitable things or explain to him about things on the news being for far away places.
Tre

[Witzend]

This is all so familiar now, it is good to realise we are not the only ones avoiding TV, it used to be the companion and friend before m-i-l got too confused to understand it and it became 'rubbish'. The things that really annoy her are impossible to avoid: women wearing "unsuitable" clothes (low cut tops, short skirts or scruffy) or over made-up or unattractive women. Or men with any facial hair. Or bald men. Or unattractive men... Just about everybody

My mother had a thing about hair. Women's big fluffy messy hair - that over-permed type where there's masses of it all over the place. The instant anyone came on TV with hair like that we'd wait for her to say it - and she always did: 'That HAIR!' Turned into something of a family joke, my daughters say it now whenever any one with Granny's Hated Hair comes on.

If she wasn't past it now she'd have had a field day with Rebekah Brooks!

[NeverGiveUp]

We rarely have the tv on these days, news 24 is one of the worse with the headlines at the bottom of the screen. They repeat continuously, one murder then becomes 10 or 20, if dad falls asleep in front of the tv she will read the headline for even longer so we have 100 murders.

Then we have the trouble of feeding all these people, the cost will be enormous. To try and calm one outburst and get her to eat I put on a food programme, big mistake, she was terrified by The Hairy Bikers, I think it was those huge mouthfuls of food, she was working out how we could afford to feed them.

[Dol]

I found that the only TV my mother could tolerate were cartoons (which she had never liked before the alzheimers took hold) - but after, funny cartoons made her laugh and laugh - happy ones like Shrek ....there came a stage where she could no longer follow a plot, having been an avid TV watcher all her life. Now she has no interest in TV at all.

[fizzie]

I love these forums. After days of total frustration I realise that there are so many of us in the same situation and so many still smiling.

My Mum also has VasDementia and she occasionally muddles up tv and reality but usually if she has dozed off in the middle of a programme and wakes up and can be confused for quite a while. We usually just reassure her and one of us pops round to take her for a walk down the garden and suddenly all is well with the world.

The other day I discovered a DVD player with an automatic changer which means that it would be possible on a bad day to load up to 5 dvds of old films and just leave the machine running. I like that idea as she really loves the old romantic films or the gene kelly type dancing stories and they are really cheap to buy on ebay.

[rajesh]

It would happen with my mother as well. While watching TV before dinner time she would think that a lot of people have come in the house and will start asking the maid to prepare food for them following the Indian tradition and it will require some convincing but she will always be in doubt. It was a sweet thing. She was 95 years and her TV watching was largely confined to religious discourses. She had great respect for religious persons and saints. I found this very sweet and beautiful. She will also recognize mirror images as real. One day she took me to my room and showing the mirror said that an old woman stays there. She would take her own image as the old woman. On being reminded that the old woman is she herself, she would wonder if it was true and she was as old as that. She was like a little child. Your post made me think about her and I always miss her.

Hello all. Mum has Vascular dementia and a range of issues - many of which I have learned more about from reading posts on here so thank you

Over maybe the last year she has started to get distressed at times when she hears upsetting news on the TV or Radio - or when controversial things are being discussed (I have to try to ensure she doesn't have Radio 2 on when Jeremy Vine is on as that's a sure fire upset!) Occasionally she will hear of an incident and worry that a family member might be involved - for example if she hears of traffic delays or accidents - she will ring worried if I am caught up in it - even though the road / area might be many miles away. I have always done my best to reassure her and put whatever it is in context, persuade her to change to something else etc and usually she is OK after a bit.

Last night she watched the programme on whales and rang me in distress about the man eating ones so I got her to turn the tv off and we chatted for quite some time to get it out of her mind. Tonight I said that I didn't know if she would want to watch tonights episode although it was about dolphins not whales (and read out what it said it was about) - or would she rather switch it off and have the radio. I try where I can to let her make the decision and only say about ones I think will really worry her "I don't think you would like that one Mum" and she usually agrees and turns it off. However, tonight she insisted that she wanted to watch it so I said "OK but turn it off if you don't like it won't you?" as sometimes she will say that she has been watching something and it got worse and worse - but hasn't thought to switch it off.

I was totally thrown when she rang sounding distressed - not by the content of the programme as such but asking "Will it still be a human being coming in to get me ready for bed tonight or will it be a dolphin?" I asked her why she thought that and she said something about them saying how clever they could be so we talked about the TV and what happens in her home not being the same etc and she is OK now and, luckily, a human carer turned up at 9!

I suppose I am posting this rather long winded explanation (sorry) as I don't know if that was the best way to handle it, if anyone else has experience of TV/ radio being confused with own situation and whether or not this is something that might increase and so I should be more aware of what she watches and steer her away from anything that has the potential to upset.

Any thoughts welcome if you are still awake after reading this!

Thanks

Celia

[tobermory]

My mum's not too bad with the tv, possibly because she is hard of hearing and cannot focus too well. I usually put the subtitles on although they move too quickly for her but when she does try to watch it she is convinced the newsreader is talking directly to her, and answers back saying things like 'yes, i know', 'thank you very much', oh yes that's good'!!

[posford1]

My mother has confusions about reality but the source of her misinterpretations are between dreams and wakefulness. It's a nightmare either way! Considering the type of content available on TV and the power of imagination, it's always going to crop up. I reckon you have done the right thing by just talking to her and getting her to switch the TV off. I do the same when Mum relates the most incredible series of events that have happened to her and the conclusions she has jumped to. I let her talk her fears out and then explain there might have been a muddle and then try and go off on a tangent about something funny or mundane so that she forgets about it..hopefully.

[Ellie315]

My CPN is always checking now about how my Grandmother thinks the TV is real. Sometimes she talks and waves to the people on the telly. The other night we had Escape to the Country on, and then she kept asking how much we wanted for her to buy the house and what other properties could she view before she made her decision.

For years now though, we've had to be really careful what is on the telly. Anything with children is a no, as then she gets distressed when she can't find them. Any intense dramas, likewise, she can't help being drawn into it. Old programmes are good, as long as they are not about the war. She used to like Jeremy Kyle (of all things, lol) but then the arguments became too upsetting for her.

One time, I was in my room, she was watching telly, and she suddenly burst into me screaming and shouting and distressed saying she "didn't bloody owe me any money and why had I sent her a solicitors letter?" I looked everywhere for the post, to see what might have triggered it, and she was really difficult to talk down. Finally I got her to sit down and have a cup of tea with me, and then I realised: Judge Judy was on the television. There never was a letter.

Its tricky. I think if you can talk them back to reality that is really well done, sometimes I've just had to sit through it until her short term memory erases it for me. When I suggest what's on telly now, I only give her the options of what I know to be 'suitable', but she's losing interest and concentration now anyway...

[mrs.hicks]

small children have the same problem identifying 'reality'. They see lions and tigers under the bed too and are even encouraged to vie with monsters. But when this happens to adults we are not so good at helping them.

I hadn't thought of it that way, but it's a good analogy.

news 24 is one of the worse with the headlines at the bottom of the screen

Agreed! Mum hates News 24 because she has to read everything (it drives her to distraction as well - "Why do I have to read everything?" she asks me...). The rolling news thing at the bottom of the screen distresses her, partly because it moves too quickly and partly because the news reader is speaking over it and she can't concentrate.

We have tried programming her digibox so that it only has the channels we're happy for her to watch, but it's a cheap thing from Tesco, so its ability to retain the selection is random (oh, the irony!).

I coudn't understand why my husband thought he was in Dubai .... until I realised he was watching a football match being played in Dubai.

Yes, I've noticed recently that tv is influencing Mum's ability to orientate herself geographically. Last night, for example, we watched Mamma Mia! together and Mum was convinced that she had somehow picked the house up and put it down at the seaside. After a few more minutes of watching, she decided that we were in a boarding house and started worrying about not having any keys to lock up. I think that was because there were lots of people dancing in and out of Meryl Streep's boarding house in the film.

She has asked me recently whether we have been flooded, because of what was on the news, and I've also had conversations with her over the phone about nice people coming to see her and telling her all sorts of interesting things.

Just lately I've started to wonder whether her increasing confusion about whether it is night time or day time is down to the tv as well - it must be so confusing to be watching something at night that is set during the day, and vice versa.

Like Celia, when Mum rings me and sounds upset or confused, I try to find out what she's been watching and then try to reassure her that it was only the tv. Mum still has a lot of awareness and usually ends the conversation with, "I'm just being silly, aren't I?", meaning that she knows it's just the tv. Other times I have to suggest to her that maybe she has been dreaming, as that's the only way I can get her to accept that what she thought had happened wasn't real.

[NeverGiveUp]

Do you think the new HD type pictuers are adding to the problem, we have an oldish tv but when everything went over to digital the picture quality improved.

Why can't there be a happy news channel? I am sure years ago that the news was more balanced with the silly season during August.

Mrs.hicks, had to laugh when I started reading about Mama Mia, I thought for a moment your mum was about to leap on a table and start singing and dancing!

[Lisa74]

Oh dear!! that sounds like a stressful situation and upsetting for your Mum- dementia is like a strange nightmare sometimes- Dolphins can be carers in nightmares.

My Granny does sometimes think TV is reality- we watched 'Embarassing bodies' a while ago and the doctor was checking people's breasts, my Granny fell asleep while watching it and then woke up and asked what time the doctor was coming to check her bust and even after reassuring her she asked again. She also makes up stories about people on the TV- such as the 'One show' presenter is a mormon and doesn't wear make-up or one of the new's presenters used to work with her Dad!

It's a strange thing but I guess where memories are non existent or weak then any material can be used instead/ to fill them in!

xx