First post - my contact is refused by relative with Alzheimer's

[Gordon Sherridon]

My wife's brother (who I'll call George) was diagnosed with Alzheimer's in 2022 and has been slowly deteriorating. Our two families are very close and we usually stay with each other for a few days every couple of months as we live several hours from each other. When we went to their house in February everything seemed fine. We chatted and even had a couple of evening sessions playing cards. However, on the morning we were due to leave George wouldn't come out of the living room to say goodbye. His wife later said that he didn't want to see me because I had forced him to go outside naked - clearly an hallucination.

They were scheduled to visit us today and his wife had been casually reminding him for the past week or so. Yesterday she phoned to say that he refused to come because he didn't want to see me. If he had to go he wouldn't speak to anyone. Needless to say we cancelled the visit. We've decided that my wife (George's sister) will go and visit them as he doesn't appear to have a problem with her. They won't discuss the situation with him as we expect that would only further cement the 'event' in his mind.

I know I'm not the first to experience this. Are there any suggestions on how to get this 'event' to disappear, so to speak?

Many thanks

Gordon

 

[JoannePat]

Hi Gordon, I am so sorry that you are going through this.

I am sure someone will be along with some good advice.

Unfortunately, in my experience, our loved ones often hold on to the "bad" hallucinations/thoughts and forget about the good times. There is no easy answer.

Take care of yourself and don't take it personally, you could maybe try calling and speaking on the phone?

Jxx

 

[Kevinl]

Hello and welcome, sometimes you just have to take one for the team as they say, next week he may be phoning you asking for help and someone else is the hated one.
Sometimes I was my wife's husband, other days a friend, sometimes a complete stranger and ordered out of the house.
I know I've said it before but, you have to learn to live in their world when they can't live in ours.
What suffers of dementia in whatever form believe is as real to them as actual reality is to us carers. K