My mom aged 75 has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s Dementia, I live a 2 hours drive away, my brother lives locally. She lives on her own after the recent death of her partner of 20 years.
Mom is under the care of a memory clinic, in the early stages, not at physical risk, in conversation she repeats herself a lot. She does not accept she has a memory problem beyond normal aging.
She misplaces things at home, and concludes she is burgled every time she goes out but most recently also while she goes upstairs. The door locks have been changed 3 times in 3 months. She is convinced she knows the "culprit". There is never any evidence of a burglary, nothing broken, "stolen" items turn up eventually, she’s never caught the burglar red handed. The only evidence she can offer is that things have moved around the house. Her explanation of how the person gets in is becoming absurd (e.g. he's a builder with a master set of keys to everyone's house and monitors the house constantly waiting for her to go out), logical argument is dismissed with a "I don't know" and she starts the conversation over again as if the last 5 mins conversation never happened.
She phones my brother at all times of the day and night to say she's burgled again, every day this week, often distressed. Of course, the burglary never happened but in her mind it is very real. I read with alarm that a poor woman of similar age to my mom in Bristol died after a burglary this week, reading between the lines she died from the resulting stress. So I need to address this behavior by my mom but we don't know what we can do.
Having the locks changed did help her a little. She is also open to the idea having a web camera fitted for when she is out of the house, for extra reassurance. I’m not sure if it would help because the family know no one is actually entering the house but I’m willing to try anything.
From the thread in this forum, belief of being burgled is a common symptom of memory loss. I haven't seen any coping strategies for either the sufferer or family.
I appeal to anyone with experience of this kind of paranoid obsession about being burgled. Is there any advice you can give to calm her down or enable her to accept the cause is a memory problem and that she is not being repeatedly burgled? I spoke to her memory clinic consultant but the only advice he gave was to try to change the subject, not to challenge her story because it will only raise the stress levels. It doesn't reduce the calls though, in fact they are getting more frequent.
Kevin
Mom is under the care of a memory clinic, in the early stages, not at physical risk, in conversation she repeats herself a lot. She does not accept she has a memory problem beyond normal aging.
She misplaces things at home, and concludes she is burgled every time she goes out but most recently also while she goes upstairs. The door locks have been changed 3 times in 3 months. She is convinced she knows the "culprit". There is never any evidence of a burglary, nothing broken, "stolen" items turn up eventually, she’s never caught the burglar red handed. The only evidence she can offer is that things have moved around the house. Her explanation of how the person gets in is becoming absurd (e.g. he's a builder with a master set of keys to everyone's house and monitors the house constantly waiting for her to go out), logical argument is dismissed with a "I don't know" and she starts the conversation over again as if the last 5 mins conversation never happened.
She phones my brother at all times of the day and night to say she's burgled again, every day this week, often distressed. Of course, the burglary never happened but in her mind it is very real. I read with alarm that a poor woman of similar age to my mom in Bristol died after a burglary this week, reading between the lines she died from the resulting stress. So I need to address this behavior by my mom but we don't know what we can do.
Having the locks changed did help her a little. She is also open to the idea having a web camera fitted for when she is out of the house, for extra reassurance. I’m not sure if it would help because the family know no one is actually entering the house but I’m willing to try anything.
From the thread in this forum, belief of being burgled is a common symptom of memory loss. I haven't seen any coping strategies for either the sufferer or family.
I appeal to anyone with experience of this kind of paranoid obsession about being burgled. Is there any advice you can give to calm her down or enable her to accept the cause is a memory problem and that she is not being repeatedly burgled? I spoke to her memory clinic consultant but the only advice he gave was to try to change the subject, not to challenge her story because it will only raise the stress levels. It doesn't reduce the calls though, in fact they are getting more frequent.
Kevin