LIVE IN CARER OF AN ELDERLY MAN WITH DEMENTIA : Can't really think how to word the problem - so have called it "imaginary errands"! My patient will begin imagining there is an errand or action to carry out and that it must be completed! My patient will begin to obsess early one morning and continue to rifle through his desk ALL DAY, consult atlases, tell me the name of the place he needs to send something to, and ask me to call someone and ask them an address ... oh my mind just boggles with all the intricacies and complications he "thinks up" ! I have done this work for 9 years, there isn't much I don't know. But this is a real problem - I CAN NOT DISTRACT HIM - other times I can but when this particular behaviour is happening NOTHING will distract him. Nothing. He worries and stresses and is in a nightmare of worry.