Can someone please give me a definition of confabulation? My OH has recently created a happy new world in his head - which is good for his wellbeing - but none of it is true..... have read somewhere that this is confabulation and does it last?
CONFABULATION?
- Thread starter maryjoan
- Start date
Confabulation is a symptom of various memory disorders in which made-up stories fill in any gaps in memory. German psychiatrist Karl Bonhoeffer coined the term “confabulation” in 1900. He used it to describe when a person gives false answers or answers that sound fantastical or made up.
My Mum has been doing this for at least 18 months but as her conversations are becoming more mixed up it is more difficult to tell. However she will sometimes still say things such as ‘she went to the dance on Friday’
My Mum has been doing this for at least 18 months but as her conversations are becoming more mixed up it is more difficult to tell. However she will sometimes still say things such as ‘she went to the dance on Friday’
I paid my daily visit to my wife in her care home today. She was in fairly good spirits but she had been or was obviously confabulating. She had just come back from the shops and said it was very quiet. I agreed that things were very quiet this morning and it was when I was there. She accepted this as normal conversation and soon settled into our cosy little get together when she commented that she was surprised to see me and then commenced to discuss how busy I was at work. I have been retired 28 years. I have learned to join in with her fantasies and not to disagree in any way. We get along fine on this basis. She will not raise the same topic again as it is all forgotten. It's hard and unreal but gives her reassurance and makes her happy that someone is on a similar wavelength to her. She does not recognise me as her husband by the way but regular visiting has established a nice bond and she accepts me for whoever she thinks I am.
A friend was visiting her dad in a nursing home and she made the comment to him that he was looking very well. His reply was that of course he did because he had just come back from a cruise. Which of course was impossible and not true.
My dad is a massive confabulator. He's always had quite an active imagination and enjoyed conspiracy theories and alternative theories and now he's putting those skills to use with dementia. He told his dr he was on a submarine (and he wanted to know how she had arrived seeing as he was 50m down), he tells me he's been in the officer's mess, he waits for a chap to turn up for a flying lesson. I know people say it's nothing to laugh about but if I don't, I'll cry, and anyway, dad would have laughed if he could understand it. The confabulation is not hallucination, but the mind trying to join things up. Dad does mix up all his memories now but I see that as different to confabulation - to my knowledge he's never been a submariner.
The confabulations are an amazing mix of a kernel of truth, old memories taken out of context, stuff seen on TV, things heard in conversation - all mixed up, stretched, distorted, added in with a large dollop of imagination to form some sort of narrative to fill in the gaps in the memory. Its a subconscious process, so the person who is confabulating has no control over it and has no idea that the stories are made up - to them the confabulations seem like real memories.
In the months before mum went into care my brother had persuaded me that his wife and I should take mum on a cruise she wanted to do. I knew it was a bad idea as mum’s behaviour, specially when she was in unfamiliar surroundings , could be volatile to say the least. In the end things escalated and we moved moved to her care home a month before we were due on the cruise.
Mum’smemory wasn’t too badly affected at the time and I dreaded her rage when she realised the cruise wouldn’t take place. As it was I turned up to visit one day and she asked me if I’d enjoyed the cruise. I said it was OK and her reply was ‘ I didn’t think I enjoyed it as much as some others, I think I’ll go on my own next time.’ Cruising was never mentioned again
If your other half is happy @maryjoan , I’d go along with it. If he says things that convince professionals he can manage his own care, you’ll have to make sure they realise it’s a confabulation, otherwise just agree and move on.
Mum’smemory wasn’t too badly affected at the time and I dreaded her rage when she realised the cruise wouldn’t take place. As it was I turned up to visit one day and she asked me if I’d enjoyed the cruise. I said it was OK and her reply was ‘ I didn’t think I enjoyed it as much as some others, I think I’ll go on my own next time.’ Cruising was never mentioned again
If your other half is happy @maryjoan , I’d go along with it. If he says things that convince professionals he can manage his own care, you’ll have to make sure they realise it’s a confabulation, otherwise just agree and move on.
Yes! I'm pretty sure dad watched something on TV about people eating pike the day he asked if the pike he ordered had arrived. Fortunately there was fish on the menu that night anyway. One resident asked what kind of fish it was at dinner and dad, still in the same confabulation, piped up: 'pike!'
I've always thought of Confabulation as:
This has happened.
Why has this happened?
It must be because ...... <fill in the gap with whatever>.
The 'whatever' can be as far fetched as you like but if it seems even a vague and imaginary possibility it becomes the fact.
I could give you some examples but won't bore you with the bricks, police, aliens, sailors, poison, killer weeds, huge cats, crowds in the bathroom ....
This has happened.
Why has this happened?
It must be because ...... <fill in the gap with whatever>.
The 'whatever' can be as far fetched as you like but if it seems even a vague and imaginary possibility it becomes the fact.
I could give you some examples but won't bore you with the bricks, police, aliens, sailors, poison, killer weeds, huge cats, crowds in the bathroom ....
I’ve mentioned before that my husband used to start each day by asking me which of our properties we were going to sell or buy that day. We could be in any country in the world and it amazed me how versatile his imagination was. The only explanation I could find was that when he wakened he no longer recognised our bedroom so had to spin a story to explain where he was and what we were doing there.
For the record we didn’t own land or properties anywhere but the one we were living in! This phase was one of many and lasted a few months.
For the record we didn’t own land or properties anywhere but the one we were living in! This phase was one of many and lasted a few months.
