Hi
I'm new to this site, and wondered if anyone can give me some advice on this.
I care for my 86 year old step-dad who is in the early stages of AD. He suffers from short term memory loss, can't remember anything said to him just a few minutes before, and has completely lost his sense of logic. Sadly he won't accept anyone other than me in to help him, he has rejected all other members of my family and refuses to have any dealing with Social Services or any help offered through other sources. Luckily he's in reasonably good health otherwise, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to deal with his dementia as I really don't understand what's happening in his mind and how to cope with how he's thinking as he can be incredibly illogical.
Just recently he claimed that his next door neighbours were singing in the early hours of the morning and waking him up which I accepted until he claimed that they were singing again as I was visiting him. There was complete silence from next door and he got quite upset with me when I said I couldn't hear anything. When I questioned him further he claimed that they were singing old WW1 songs and he couldn't understand how people so young knew them, he was tapping his feet and singing along. I promptly booked him into the doctors for a quick check up for any infections, everything was OK.
He now claims that his neighbours are singing all night, and also that other people living near to him are out in the streets singing the same songs. He's quite distressed about this as it keeps him awake. I have no idea whether to try to tell him that it's his mind playing tricks or whether to leave well alone and just hope he doesn't start confronting his neighbours as his relationship with them isn't particularly good. He can get quite agressive with me when he's upset about something and I want to avoid arguing with him but don't know how to approach this. Has anyone had any similar experiences and how did you deal with it?
AJay
I'm new to this site, and wondered if anyone can give me some advice on this.
I care for my 86 year old step-dad who is in the early stages of AD. He suffers from short term memory loss, can't remember anything said to him just a few minutes before, and has completely lost his sense of logic. Sadly he won't accept anyone other than me in to help him, he has rejected all other members of my family and refuses to have any dealing with Social Services or any help offered through other sources. Luckily he's in reasonably good health otherwise, but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to deal with his dementia as I really don't understand what's happening in his mind and how to cope with how he's thinking as he can be incredibly illogical.
Just recently he claimed that his next door neighbours were singing in the early hours of the morning and waking him up which I accepted until he claimed that they were singing again as I was visiting him. There was complete silence from next door and he got quite upset with me when I said I couldn't hear anything. When I questioned him further he claimed that they were singing old WW1 songs and he couldn't understand how people so young knew them, he was tapping his feet and singing along. I promptly booked him into the doctors for a quick check up for any infections, everything was OK.
He now claims that his neighbours are singing all night, and also that other people living near to him are out in the streets singing the same songs. He's quite distressed about this as it keeps him awake. I have no idea whether to try to tell him that it's his mind playing tricks or whether to leave well alone and just hope he doesn't start confronting his neighbours as his relationship with them isn't particularly good. He can get quite agressive with me when he's upset about something and I want to avoid arguing with him but don't know how to approach this. Has anyone had any similar experiences and how did you deal with it?
AJay