Mum and the TV

maria29al

Registered User
Mar 15, 2006
426
0
63
Warwickshire
Just wondered if anyone else has had this with their relatives......

Mum has AD and is getting more and more confused daily...she now thinks the people on the Television are speaking to her personally....a little unsettling

M
 

Amy

Registered User
Jan 4, 2006
3,454
0
Yup, mum seemed to continue to respond to the TV long after she'd lost the art of conversation.
Amy
 

Kathleen

Registered User
Mar 12, 2005
639
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69
West Sussex
Hello Maria

Yes we had the same thing too, Mum once went to my sister in a panic because lots of people were coming and she had to feed them, after investigating it turned out to be a scene from a film she and Dad had watched the previous evening.

In the end we had to monitor her viewing and used videos instead, murders etc were all too real for her, the news was scary too.

Kathleen
 

Brucie

Registered User
Jan 31, 2004
12,413
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near London
Jan also could not differentiate TV from life, so we stopped watching as she couldn't really comprehend any storyline anyway.
 

mumof3

Registered User
Feb 6, 2006
82
0
Hi Maria

We have a different problem concerning the TV. My MIL cannot change the channel but makes a daily list of programmes on that same channel to watch copied from the newspaper. Sometimes two or three lists. She then checks this list many times with her carer, phones us and friends to check that it is "okay" She is really anxious about this and needs reassurance that her programmes will "come down". Her schedule never deviates but every day it is the same telephoning and checking with everyone. Once written down she has to keep watching until her list finishes. Talking her through changing the channel on the phone requires more patience than I possess although this rarely happens. Today she told me that she had stayed up an extra two hours to watch something on her list and she was crying because the conclusion was on tonight and she didn't want to watch it. I had to give her permission to cross it off the list.

We are presuming this is to do with routine and a feeling of security. Has anyone else encountered this.
 

Dave W

Registered User
Jul 3, 2005
268
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63
Bucks
Poor reception

Excuse the pun, but it seems like the best metaphor. Before hospitalisation, Mum kept forgetting how to operate the TV and complaining that it was broken. During a couple of tentative conversations, it turned out she wasn't really capable of following the programmes - she kept saying the TV kept changing channel on its own (it certainly didn't), so I assume she just couldn't concentrate long enough to follow a whole programme.

There's certainly been a couple of times where something on the TV has filtered through into real life and convinced her that it's real - I think this is quite common. Oddly, we also had the opposite once in hospital. For two days Mum was convinced she was *on* TV and had to cut out visit short as 'the cameramen were waiting for her'. The other patients were all extras, and one of the nurses was the Director. In an odd sort of way, it was quite funny as she was utterly convinced. Neither we nor the ward staff ever worked out what had triggered it, although apparently another patient some years ago had decided the ward was the other room of the Big Brother house.

TV now sems to be used for background noise and chatter (as does the radio): she doesn't see to really watch for long, other than the news (which comes in short chunks, so is presumably easier to follow?)
 

Norman

Registered User
Oct 9, 2003
4,348
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Birmingham Hades
Peg does not understand TV at all now,just says it's rubish and a waste of electicity.
We were on Tv and she didn't recognise us.
I don't see much TV either because she talks all the time about rubish etc,etc.
Norman
 

PatH

Registered User
Feb 14, 2005
301
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80
N.Ireland
Recognize this , My husband used to count the people on the tv so that he could make them a cup of tea!
Pat
 

May

Registered User
Oct 15, 2005
627
0
Yorkshire
Mum has started this recently. This afternoon, Mum looking out of the window, 'Who's that chap with the stick?' ' 'Don't know Mum there no-one out there', (me looking thro' the patio window to the road, ), 'There is, he's there, look'......pointing at the tv in the corner by the window. Aah.....snooker on tv, and from the way she spoke he was in the room with us :confused:
 

maria29al

Registered User
Mar 15, 2006
426
0
63
Warwickshire
Amazing!

Wow..thanks for all the replies....didnt expect such a response! Glad its "normal"
Mum too cant use the channel hopper and goes right up to the TV to try and turn it on..then she makes clicking noises at it thinking that will help!!! I am not with her a lot of the time so cant help much due to work. I have thought about videos etc but she just wouldnt know how to operate them! She seems happy enough with it at the mo tho as she thinks she has lots of friends chatting to her...plus I know she goes to bed really early so no risk of watching anything too "dodgy".

Thanks guys...once again! :)
 

Kriss

Registered User
May 20, 2004
513
0
Shropshire
Dad would get very agitated if something like the Bill came on. He was such a gentle person that any sort of conflict or stress on the screen would affect him badly.

And Norman, "Rubbish" was one of his favourite words too - Pretty accurate really!

Kriss
 

Lynne

Registered User
Jun 3, 2005
3,433
0
Suffolk,England
maria29al said:
Mum ... now thinks the people on the Television are speaking to her personally....a little unsettling
M
My mum is just starting with this, I think. She quotes things at me as being something somebody "told" her (she doesn't get to see or talk to many people very much, now), and then when we are watching the evening TV news it turns out to be a sound-bite from the day's radio or TV headlines.
 

Margarita

Registered User
Feb 17, 2006
10,824
0
london
Talk about TV ,me & my daughter got one for mum to day ,with the help of a friend we made at the care home , we finally found one a bargain £40 , Man friend carried it all the way to care home for us .

Now mum wants to see the film Gone with the wind, so ok Man friend his name is Robin is going to lend her his one ,what gave me the blues is mum did not know what a video was ,my mum use to love her video ,all she wanted was the film to come on TV & was getting all confused in how I have to get a video player to play the film .

And you know what I am also worried, as before mum got diagnosed with AD, she use to play a film on video called the 3 man 24/7 & I am not joking when I say 24/7.

Came home thinking what is the point of AD, what it all about, but I shall carry on & be positive & buy mum the film on video.

Social worker is pushing brother CPN to get him in to housing support, so mum can come home soon, I wonder mum being in care home, is like 3 step back.
Ok going to lose mum to AD, but not yet

Anyway better go, thanks for letting me share.
 

lou lou

Registered User
Nov 9, 2005
46
0
London
When my mum developed a UTI she started hallucinating. She thought people on the telly were sitting with her in her living room. One evening she asked me "who are all those people sitting over there ?". The scene on TV was a group of people in the Queen Vic on Eastenders. Then she thought people were getting into the house through the pictures on the walls. Very worrying. This was the point when I finally caved in and got a psychogeriatrician out to see her.

I used to pay her Sky TV subscription because the TV was her only companion for many hours of the day. She loved the soaps and was a mad keen tennis fan, she knew who all the players were, who had won what tournament, when.

When she moved into the nursing home last summer by brother bought her one of these lovely slimline plasma TVs but now she says, I never watch TV, I never liked it much. I think it's because she cannot follow a storyline. It seems the staff put it on sometimes and it is just background noise.

I always had to put the TV on for her before I went to work as at one point she became very dyspraxic and couldn't manage the remote control ( or buttons or anything fiddly) eventually she couldn't even manage to answer the phone which ratcheted my stress up a few notches as up until then I would phone her in the middle of the day to make sure she had taken her tablets and had her lunch, which I would leave in the microwave because we couldn't let her use the cooker ( as other postees have mentioned.)

In the space of two years she managed to set fire to 4 microwave ovens, fortunately only the ovens burned out not the house with her in it. When I look back I realise how much craziness I just accomodated to without ever considering that mum couldn't stay in her own home.

But in the end with me staying over, social services carers going in three times a day and district nurses visiting at weekends when I couldn't be there, it still wasn't enough to keep her safe. She would fall and not be able to get up. She once got trapped in her kitchen because she couldn't work out how to step backwards with her walking frame to open the door, it was lucky a neighbour heards her pathetic calls for help.

So she is now in a nursing home where she is well looked after. We've had our ups and downs, episodes of her not eating or drinking. She has stopped asking me to take her home but that doesn't get rid of the guilt monster.

Like others I work full time, have a family of my own, live 80 miles away have health problems of my own including chemotherapy induced menopause so I feel for other posters who have mentioned these things.

And like other posters I have a family of brothers out of whom the sun shines even when they don't bother to go and visit her. I wouldn't say bad things about them to her but I do have to grit my teeth sometimes.

My mum nearly died just before christmas having developed kidney failure as a result of her refusal to eat or drink. At the time beat myself up for thinking maybe it would be a blessed release but now she is so much better she still knows who I am and her face lights up when I go and visit she even seems to have got something of her sense of humour back. The highs and lows of her dementia never cease to amaze me.

Heres hoping she stays well enough for me to go to Peru again in June, a holiday I had to return from urgently last year when MIL died suddenly , the cat died and mum went into hospital after yet another fall while I wasn't there.

Sorry for meandering I did just mean to reply to the TV thread but you know what it's like once you start. Wishing well to all of you in your own personal struggles.

Lou Lou
 

Lynne

Registered User
Jun 3, 2005
3,433
0
Suffolk,England
lou lou said:
The highs and lows of her dementia never cease to amaze me. Here's hoping she stays well enough for me to go to Peru again in June, a holiday I had to return from urgently last year when MIL died suddenly, the cat died and mum went into hospital after yet another fall while I wasn't there.

Sorry for meandering, I did just mean to reply to the TV thread but you know what it's like once you start. Wishing well to all of you in your own personal struggles.

Lou Lou

;) Oh LouLou, don't be sorry, we all go off at a tangent now & then.
Often reading these 'little details' puts the main event in context and gives it 'flavour' :)eek: ) if you know what I mean!
 

Suzy R

Registered User
Jul 4, 2004
40
0
Switzerland
Memories..

This topic brings back memories of my grandfather, who died of AD (or similar) nearly thirty years ago. He used to watch the Martini advert and then complain that the people were making him drunk as he couldn't refuse to join in. I used to love that advert.

My mum now has AD too, but has never been bothered much by the TV, which now even fails to register with her. She just has her special 'mirror friend'.
 

Tender Face

Account Closed
Mar 14, 2006
5,379
0
NW England
lou lou said:
because the TV was her only companion for many hours of the day. .....

I just accomodated to without ever considering that mum couldn't stay in her own home.....

Sorry for meandering I did just mean to reply to the TV thread but you know what it's like once you start.

Lou Lou

Lou Lou, thank you for sharing that. If I told you how many chords it struck I would be here all evening! (If you meander I can be a streaming torrent!!!)

Mum has seen the likes of 'Richard and Judy' as her personal friends for years and we have already had a couple of 'blips' when she has claimed the TV wasn't working... (transpires not plugged in/realised she had forgotten how to work the remote). It worries me (although I am grateful for being 'prepared') that some day sooner or later her companion really will seem to her like the 'monster in the corner' (Can't remember where that phrase was coined - sure someone will enlighten me!).

It's like I can protect from so much (the cooker, the microwave, checking in to make sure she has had her tablets etc etc ) but simply not everything. Mum is (currently) adamant she wants to stay where she is.. will not move in with us... and I think I have resigned myself that a care home will be necessary at some point in the future.

Some days, I feel it is against everything she would really want for herself - others I wonder if she has ever thought, as I am now doing, that apart from all the other issues to be considered, constant 'companionship' outside the TV would actually be beneficial to her.... especially if her 'friend in the corner' starts turning 'nasty' on her.....

You take care of yourself! Love, Tender Face, x
 

Margarita

Registered User
Feb 17, 2006
10,824
0
london
Lou Lou

I think it's because she cannot follow a storyline.
thats what happening to mum now

Also I feel mum wants TV now just for background during the night & not going to put Vidio in her room ,have notices When in front room in care home ,when video on mum looks at it & keep napping on ,off .





PS

Oh finally got mum Spanish book for mum to read, when I ask her how many pages she read? Let me see she says & Beings to read aloud from the first page to me, 2 days now doing the same thing .Bless her soul I suppose it’s because she forgotten?

If it was ant for TP I would have been saying, but you read that already to me? & she would of got angry with me .

So thanks every one on TP for shareing in all areas of TP your storys with your love one
 

panda

Registered User
Apr 16, 2006
88
0
Surrey
Go easy on your self

When dealing with your mum you know it is the illness and not her. Do the same thing for yourself blame it on the hormones it helps !
 

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