Scary Thoughts

[desperado]

Mum is now 94 and since Friday has started talking about a very frightening experience she has had "recently" which is quite frankly scaring her to death !! She has apparently seen some men cutting someone up and she saw them. The "other people" told her to get away otherwise they would be going after her. She claims she ran away and now she is really frightened that "they" will find her. She doesn't remember anything that has happened after half an hour or so and the fact that she keeps remembering this every day since Friday and even wakes up talking about is really worrying me. Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this and if so where does it come from ??

 

[Anniewragby]

I find that my Dad absorbs things from the TV - perhaps she saw or even heard something like that.He thought he was going to the prresentation of the World Snooker trophy the othernight - it had been on almost continuously for 2 weeks!
Hopefully these things are easily forgotten too......

 

[FifiMo]

It could be that your mum is having hallucinations which can be so detailed to her that she thinks they are real. What you can do is lift the phone and let on that you are calling the police. Then act surprised on the phone when they tell you that the men have been caught and are in jail. This might be enough to break the cycle for your mum and let her get some peace.

Hope this helps,

Fiona

 

[Acco]

I found my wife crying after I had popped out of the room just for a few moments; the TV was on at the time. When I asked what the matter was she replied, 'I've just killed someone with my motorbike'. Never had a motorbike! I came to the conclusion that she had picked up on something from the TV. There has been a period during the progress of her dementia where items on the TV have frightened or alarmed my wife and I had to be mindful of programmes and their content. She has also at a different time been unable to differentiate between reality and people/animals on TV and believed they were in the room with us. Both phases seem to have passed now. I have managed to calm and reassure her by either telling her that, 'It was just somebody telling a story', or, 'It's a film just the same as we see at the pictures', or, 'Everything is alright now, you've just had a dream like all of us do at sometime'. Fortunately for both of us, these solutions have worked but, as we all know, what works one time may not work the next. I hope by the replies you receive to your post you find a suitable solution. Not sure what the solution is to the continual reference by your mum or why, unless there is something on the TV or radio, or other situation which crops up on a daily basis?

 

[Witzend]

Mum is now 94 and since Friday has started talking about a very frightening experience she has had "recently" which is quite frankly scaring her to death !! She has apparently seen some men cutting someone up and she saw them. The "other people" told her to get away otherwise they would be going after her. She claims she ran away and now she is really frightened that "they" will find her. She doesn't remember anything that has happened after half an hour or so and the fact that she keeps remembering this every day since Friday and even wakes up talking about is really worrying me. Has anyone else ever experienced anything like this and if so where does it come from ??

Oh, your poor old mum, how horrible for her. I do think things on TV often get muddled in their heads with reality - TBH there's not much you can do except maybe say that you're on to them, you've told the police and they've locked 'them' up. I have found that reasoning/logic simply doesn't work.

My mother went through a phase of telling me that 'they' (in her care home) were killing people and I was being deceived into thinking 'they' were nice because they didn't do anything while I was there and were crafty enough to be nice to me. She even insisted 'they' were following us whenever I took her out - every car, every cyclist, every dog walker, was one of 'them'.

I don't know whether it was triggered by something on TV or maybe she'd seen staff taking out someone who'd recently died in a black body bag - she was still with it enough then to have known what it was. However, this stage did pass eventually - in the meantime I kept telling her that I was on to 'them', I had told the police, etc. All I can say is that these stages do usually pass sooner or later, but there's no doubt that they're very distressing while they last.

 

[desperado]

Thank you everyone for your ideas. It really helps to hear that this is "normal" behaviour for Alzheimers sufferers. Unfortunately the carers who visit mum when I am at work, leave the TV on and she will sit and watch everything that moves. Maybe she has seen something or maybe it was a bad dream. However, I am going to try the telephoning of the police method and see if that works. I did tell her the first time she mentioned it that they had gone to prison but she didn't believe me because she knew they were after her. The police on the phone may work though. I hope she doesn't ask to speak to them !!!

 

[Nebiroth]

It could either be a hallucination - in which your mum has actually experienced this event - or a delusion, in which case it is simply a false belief or memory which she did not actually experience at any time but believes she did.

Both hallucinations and delusions are very common in dementia - delusions more so than hallucinations, although in Lewy Body Dementia, which is one of the rarer forms, hallucinations are a key indicator of that particular disease.

Delusions may be triggered by misinterpretation of real life events: for example, reading a newspaper article, or seeing a news item or drama on television. The person is unable to distinguish fiction from reality, or applies remote events to their own personal life.

In either case, there is no point is trying to convince the person it is not 'real'. This can even result in their believing you are part of a conspiracy against them.

The only real way forward to to calm their fears, if necessary concoct a convincing story that resolves the 'problem'.

As others have said, the obvious way forward is to pretend to contact the police and then be "pleasantly suprised" to hear that the murderers have all been caught and put in jail for many years.

It may also be worth asking the GP or consultant, if there is one assigned, to re-assess, since there are medications that can reduce or eliminate both hallucinations and delusions, or at the very least, to alleviate the distress caused by them.