My mother has Dementia with Lewy Bodies and is obsessed with family members. She has no recollection that anyone has died and believes her own parents to still be alive and well. She is constantly looking for them and asking where they are and hunting around the house for them. She is also fixated on her sister and believes that I am her. The real sister is in her 70s and in a care home with Alzheimers, but my mother has forgotten this.
Anyway, every day she starts asking what time they will be arriving for dinner. She thinks her mother, father and brothers and sisters are coming for dinner. She starts getting agitated about what to feed them on for dinner and starts laying plates and cutlery out for multiple people and my poor dad has to go around putting all the plates etc away again. My dad is constantly telling her no-one is coming for dinner, it's just the two of them as always, and everyone is going to their own house for their dinner. We never tell her that the parents and brothers are dead or that the sister is in a care home, the memory clinic advised never to do that and to go along with the delusions.
She goes ballistic when he tells her no-one is coming for dinner, she accuses him of telling her that people are coming, and she rants and raves at him, slamming doors and going crazy about it. Often she thinks he is her own dad and accuses him of not caring about the family since he "isn't prepared to make their dinner". She is always going on and on about feeding all these non existent people at dinner time and we just can't think what to do to stop it, or at least to stop her being angry about it.
My dad is now dreading dinner time every day because of her going on about who is coming for dinner. She used to do all the cooking but no longer has the motivation/skill/memory for it, so he has been doing the meals. Even in the morning, he comes down stairs and finds plates and cups lying on the worktop for all the "family" to get their breakfast. She is okay at lunch time funnily enough.
When she was a child, she lived in a small cottage with her parents and 5 siblings, so it's like she has reverted to those days when she lived in that situation, where there was a big group to feed each meal time.
Has anyone had any experience of this problem surrounding meal times and what can be done so she isn't so angry and upset?
Anyway, every day she starts asking what time they will be arriving for dinner. She thinks her mother, father and brothers and sisters are coming for dinner. She starts getting agitated about what to feed them on for dinner and starts laying plates and cutlery out for multiple people and my poor dad has to go around putting all the plates etc away again. My dad is constantly telling her no-one is coming for dinner, it's just the two of them as always, and everyone is going to their own house for their dinner. We never tell her that the parents and brothers are dead or that the sister is in a care home, the memory clinic advised never to do that and to go along with the delusions.
She goes ballistic when he tells her no-one is coming for dinner, she accuses him of telling her that people are coming, and she rants and raves at him, slamming doors and going crazy about it. Often she thinks he is her own dad and accuses him of not caring about the family since he "isn't prepared to make their dinner". She is always going on and on about feeding all these non existent people at dinner time and we just can't think what to do to stop it, or at least to stop her being angry about it.
My dad is now dreading dinner time every day because of her going on about who is coming for dinner. She used to do all the cooking but no longer has the motivation/skill/memory for it, so he has been doing the meals. Even in the morning, he comes down stairs and finds plates and cups lying on the worktop for all the "family" to get their breakfast. She is okay at lunch time funnily enough.
When she was a child, she lived in a small cottage with her parents and 5 siblings, so it's like she has reverted to those days when she lived in that situation, where there was a big group to feed each meal time.
Has anyone had any experience of this problem surrounding meal times and what can be done so she isn't so angry and upset?