Phone Calls

[NorthBankDave]

Hello,

I've got a question about phone calls & I'm just wondering if anyone else on here has encountered something similar. .

Yesterday my Mum says that she received a telephone call in the morning during which someone was shouting at her for ‘watching too much television…over 30 hours’. Mum later said that she ‘wasn’t bothered’ by the call but it was enough to stop her watching television until I got back & assured her that it was OK. It seems a VERY odd thing for anyone to ring up and start getting verbally abusive about, but my Mum insists that it happened & so I have to believe her. If it has then I’m angry about whoever did it.

Set against that though there have been occasions when Mum has imagined or misconstrued phone calls. Prior to her diagnosis Mum claimed that she had received a call from an anonymous female informing her that I had gone to a party, some sort of family get together… at which her late sister would be present. There was, obviously, no such party & I know for certain (because I checked) no phone call. More recently she received one of these ‘have you been involved in an accident in the last three years’ cold calls in the mid-afternoon. When I saw her Mum was distressed because what she understood from the call was ‘Your son’s been killed in a car crash’.

Last Sunday I went to do her shopping for her & she asked if I was going by myself. She said that there were ‘people’ in the house the week before ‘and they said they were going to go shopping’ (this never happened) and she also expressed the surprise that ‘David’ wasn’t coming with me – and I’m David! This doesn't happen every day but it's been pretty regular over the last year.

I’m working on the basis that Mum received the phone call she claims to have had and I’m setting up 1571 and caller ID on her phone just in case. I have to work on the assumption that what she saying is true, offer love and reassurance and try and shield her from distress the best that I can. Is this just a symptom of Alzheimer's/Vascular Dementia? Has anyone else had something like this?

 

[Hamster Wheel]

Is there a caller list facility on her phone or is the phone bill online so you can check who has called?

 

[Oh Knickers]

Your mum sounds rather vulnerable as she is misinterpreting calls. I would suggest two actions. One is to get your mum on TPS (Telephone Preference service). You can do it online. It should, should being the operative word, stop marketing or sales calls. You can also do Mail Preference Service and stop spam mail. These do take a few weeks to kick in.

The other thing to consider is BT do a service to stop unwanted callers phoning through. Mother is happy to give her card details over the phone and there were a couple of scams which were sorted out but which took hours to resolve. One of which was an extremely expensive piece of kit to stop scam calls! It can include those scams - you have been involved in an accident. type calls.

Best of luck.

 

[Moggymad]

My mum used to tell me that various people had rung her & I'd get some odd stories. I did used to think they were real but having followed up a few of them ( one of which involved the doctors surgery, very embarrassing ), I came to realise they were a mixture of her own daydreams, things she had been watching on the tv & real phone calls from cold callers & people at the door. They all became a jumble in her head. We then had a period of time when mum wouldn't answer the phone at all, not very helpful when you need to keep a dailycheck on her. Perhaps a phone with call blocking facility built in would help or you can get a call blocking device to attach to some existing phones. We dud register for the BT call blocking which did the trick for a while but somehow calls started to get through again. Best of luck

 

[canary]

Making up stories that havent happened is typical of any sort of dementia. It is called confabulation and she is not doing it on purpose - it is the product of a damaged brain. When someone has memory loss the brain "fills in" the gaps with things from a different memory, dreams, stuff from TV, imagination etc all muddled up in an attempt to make sense of the fragments of memory that they have left.

You are right to go along with the story to her, but dont automatically trust things that she says without confirmation - always investigate.

PS we have a BT Callblocker and it is wonderful - no more cold callers.

 

[northumbrian_k]

PS we have a BT Callblocker and it is wonderful - no more cold callers.

We have too and it has been great to be free of unwanted calls of all types. My wife used to get upset at calls which, when she answered, just went dead or spoke in a funny voice. This was evidence to her of my infidelity rather than some automated dialer just ringing numbers hoping to sell stuff or scam people. Since we got call blocker all such calls have been screened out and things are much less stressful in that regard.

 

[NorthBankDave]

Thank you for all your advice. Thank you Canary for your description of 'confabulation' - that filling in of the gaps with dreams and other memories is absolutely what Mum is doing. It helps to know that it's a common feature of dementia and to be able to give it a name.

I'll definitely going to get the BT call blocker - it sounds great! I'm thinking of getting the caller display feature too so that Mum can see who is calling before she answers the phone.

Thank you so much again everyone!