Hallucinations

[Moonlady]

First timer here! Sorry this is so long.

Mum is definitely showing more and more signs of change through some form of dementia/alzheimers. She still seems to have real logic in her thought. She just cannot get the words out and communicate what she wants to say.

I worry that she is still (reasonably) ok and maybe "trying it on" and showing her resistance as I try to get extra support to allow her to stay in her own home. I need to know I am responding properly in her and my best interest - ie that I get additional support other than myself.

My question is - have any of your loved ones told you they have experienced something like the following:

a) seeing tiny insects all the time on sheets and carpets etc
b) neighbours "knocking on my bedroom window late night / early morning because they are trying to get me out of my house"
c) a (potential) carer* - "leaving my kitchen with water flooding over the work top which took me ages to clear up and that women is never, never coming into my house again".

(* the carer is a friend of mine who was going to help with shopping; be additional company; take mum out in the car etc;etc. Mum really liked her the first three times they met (once with me and twice just the two in mum's housed having a coffee and chat prior to building up to providing some more practical support) I have been trying to get support with the long term view in mind that Mum will need it and I cannot supply it all on my own. This has been rejected with venom over the past two years so I have just carried on alone. My main aim is to keep mum in her own home which is her definite main wish but I am sure she thinks everything I am doing is to put her in a home!

I cannot believe that c) is true - either there was an accident my friend did not notice or it is imagined. Mum had an over-powering reaction to the problem (whatever it was - she got really angry and frustrated when I asked for more of an explanation.

It makes me wonder about my own judgement either that my mum is very manipulative and this is another way to stop help other than me or my friend (who cannot relate anything she did to this story) is not a suitable support. My view had been my friend would be ideal and I don't want to lose her which is why I would like to hear of other's experience

 

[Candlelight 67]

Hello Moonlady

I can not offer you much advice as I am only just at the start of this journey myself but I am certain someone will be along with good advice.

I can though assure you that your judgement is fine. You have only done everything that you can for your Mother and even getting a friend of yours in to help shows how much you do care. From what I have read on here it seems introducing some one to help is a bit of a trial and error process.

My Mother is at the stage when she thinks all her valuables are being stolen. They are not she has just put them in a safe place. We spend hours looking for them.

I have read here that people do have hallucinations and they can be controlled.

I hope you do get your answers and Good luck.

Candlelight 67

 

[meme]

2 yrs ago , on a visit to my mother she told me she could see flys all over the walls and mirrors...she knew they werent real...that night she screamed and woke her nieghbour up ...she thought there was a man (it was a clothes horse actually) in her bedroom...I called an ambulence and she was in hospital for 8 weeks with pneumonia ......

 

[nmintueo]

It's not unusual to read of this sort of thing in the forums (I don't have direct experience myself), where people have delusional or hallucinatory experiences, are suspicious of people around them, and report things that didn't (or almost certainly didn't) actually happen. Baseless accusations of theft, for example, seem quite common.

a) seeing tiny insects all the time on sheets and carpets etc​

Possibly a visual problem? Or a variation of this delusion is things on or in the skin:

Little black bugs
http://forum.alzheimers.org.uk/showthread.php?42697

b) neighbours "knocking on my bedroom window late night / early morning because they are trying to get me out of my house"​

no-one went near the door but she still said every morning that someone had knocked and woken her

 

[Jessbow]

Mum had the entire fire brigade in her airing cupboard one night.
a bloke walks thru wih a ladder on his head mid morning most days

They don't bother her in the slightest- which I find quite odd

 

[Spamar]

We had a burglar who punched and stole money - except that he didn't know where he had been punched, no signs of forced entry and I didn't wake up!

This type of behaviour is not uncommon. A few months ago OH had several delusions - horribly real to him - and ended up on anti psychotics. Now off them and replaced by Memantine and the change is amazing!

 

[Moonlady]

Thank you to everyone for your responses very helpful

 

[Ann Mac]

We have had odd instances of Mil telling us about events that are quite bizarre and unlikely to have happened, though she tells us about them in an amazingly convincing way. Similarly, we have had instances of her 'seeing things' that aren't happening/aren't there - couple of weeks ago, she called me into the lounge to come and watch our car 'moving up and down the drive by itself'.

These instances have increased rapidly over the last few weeks - part of the reason why we have brought her to live with us. Yesterday was a pretty 'bad' day, in terms of this type of event - though having said that, for the most part, she wasn't at all distressed or upset by what she thought she could see/had seen . We had her asking about the woman she had seen cleaning our house - the description she gave didn't match anyone we know at all, and we certainly don't have a cleaner (I wish!). She was convinced her late Mother in law was visiting because she clearly recalled talking to her that morning, and even making her a drink. She recounted recent 'incidents' that involved her 'dancing in front of the computer', encountering a complete stranger in a most bizarre fashion that simply couldn't have happened, was convinced that she had seen/could see both my parents in our house, and in fact that the house belongs to them (my Father is dead and my mother hasn't visited since Mil moved in) - and half a dozen other incidents, that actually started with her phoning the police in the early hours of yesterday morning, to report 'strange people running round upstairs in her house' !

As I said, yesterday, Mil wasn't at all upset by these 'visions' - but we have had days where she has been furious/upset because she has been convinced we have hidden her possessions, or she can quite clearly remember one of us saying/doing something really unpleasant to her. She is so completely convincing - I suppose because at root, she really believes what she is saying - that I've found myself, if only for a split second, wondering at times, and I've worried that people who don't know us - or her - that well, will believe her

 

[Frances E]

Some people with Lewy Body Dementia have hallucinations that don't upset them and that they sometimes enjoy having. Hope this.helps.

 

[J W]

Yes Lewy body dementia diagnosis, my parent was having hallucinations months before so it gave them a clue i believe to diagnose lewy body.

 

[clareglen]

My mum has had similar hallucinations & delusions for about 18 months. She has what I thought was Parkinson's dementia as this is classic with Parkinson's progression but now doc has mentioned Lewy Bodies but she has deteriorated last couple of weeks to include Alzheimer's symptoms. Having brain scan tomorrow so hopefully we'll have a diagnosis. She was on meds, aricept, to control them but it didn't agree with her. It took me a while to get to grips with them. At first I would try & pull her back into reality, but now I go along with it & if anything is troubling try & offer a way out eg., I found her one night in a spare bedroom in a bed with not many covers & cold & moved her back into her own bed. Next day I asked her about it & she said 'that man that lodges here, his wife asked me to go into there' so I said 'well next time tell her no & you're going into your own bed' - seems to work. She also had a scruffy man who lived in the spare room but she chased him . Is not bothered a bit by them except she gets cross with dead relatives who won't speak to her or eat the meal she has made for them & also people knocking on her window/door. Actually I believed that one till I read this post & realise it's probably another hallucination, as I live next door & would have heard any knocking.

 

[MeganCat]

Mum used to always be trying to pick up what she saw as dirt/marks on the floor - there was nothing there.
When she had her first UTI she hallucinated that a man had broken in and poured water all over her bed, and then again water all over the kitchen - everything was dry. She is in hospital now on antipsychotics and still hallucinating however only about her dog now, which she seems a little comforted by - the disturbing ones about men in the house have stopped

 

[oneloopylady]

My dad has lewy body dementia and yes, has many hallucinations, some more frightening than others. When he tells us tales of dogs on the window ledge (he is in a room on the 2nd floor in a care home...) he is happy to tell us all that this amazing dog can do - on a window ledge. And we play along. When he tells us that somebody was under his bed threatening him with a gun, we ask the manager to test for infections. Infections, and stress, can make the delusions/hallucinations much worse, so always ask to eliminate infection if you can.....

if your mum is scared by the hallucinations, then it is worth asking the doctors for medication. If she is quite happy, then I would leave it.

It is quite common in lewy body, and some of the hallucinations/delusions can return, and others appear for just a few moments, then are gone again.

I hope she settles down, but if not, please ask the GP for a simple UTI test.

Hugs
Trisha

 

[J W]

My dad has lewy body dementia and yes, has many hallucinations, some more frightening than others. When he tells us tales of dogs on the window ledge (he is in a room on the 2nd floor in a care home...) he is happy to tell us all that this amazing dog can do - on a window ledge. And we play along. When he tells us that somebody was under his bed threatening him with a gun, we ask the manager to test for infections. Infections, and stress, can make the delusions/hallucinations much worse, so always ask to eliminate infection if you can.....

if your mum is scared by the hallucinations, then it is worth asking the doctors for medication. If she is quite happy, then I would leave it.

It is quite common in lewy body, and some of the hallucinations/delusions can return, and others appear for just a few moments, then are gone again.

I hope she settles down, but if not, please ask the GP for a simple UTI test.

Hugs
Trisha

The first hallucination we recall was a dog jumping at her and trying to knock it down, since moving to the care home we think they have become less frequent but health has deteriorated and now has lewy body + vas dementia + parkinsons symptoms.