Hello, I have been reading the threads on this forum for a while and It has been very helpfull. Mum was formally diagnosed with AD nearly 2 years ago and has been on aricept ever since. Her short term memory is virtually gone and she is not good on her legs any more. My sister and I take care of her in her sheltered flat, we visit every day, cook meals etc and altough she is not incontinent and manages to potter around ok,I feel she is slipping away from us. She is increasingly lost in her world of old memories and embeleshes stories we know well with more exiting events. She is 84 and her whole life is about the war and her childhood. Sometimes she mixes things she has seen on Tv with real events is this normal for AD ? When she is corrected she gets upset. I would be glad of some reasurance as we are unsure of how to deal with it.
slipping into her own world
- Thread starter sandie
- Start date
Hi Sandie
If your Mum is happy in her world, even though the facts are jumbled, is it doing anyone any harm to go with the story?
If it keeps your Mum happy and less agitated I wouldn't try to correct her. It won't do any good anyway.
Enter her world as best you can, it is easier on everyone.
Good luck
Alfjess
If your Mum is happy in her world, even though the facts are jumbled, is it doing anyone any harm to go with the story?
If it keeps your Mum happy and less agitated I wouldn't try to correct her. It won't do any good anyway.
Enter her world as best you can, it is easier on everyone.
Good luck
Alfjess
Sandi, Why correct her? This is her world, you are never going to change it.
We have to learn to accept this. Please, enter her world, embrace what she offers. What have YOU got to lose? She has lost most of her 'life'
Help her to enjoy the 'rest'.
Sorry Sandi, should have welcomed you to TP. Here we really do care.
We have to learn to accept this. Please, enter her world, embrace what she offers. What have YOU got to lose? She has lost most of her 'life'
Help her to enjoy the 'rest'.
Sorry Sandi, should have welcomed you to TP. Here we really do care.
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Thank you for your help. I thought it would be best to just go along with her stories, as she seems to get a lot of comfort from them. However, strangely she seems to have forgotten our childhood which feels a bit hurtful sometimes. I know I should be glad things are not any worse than they are and she seems happy.
No what you mean , thinking about it now looking back , for me I wondered why also .
My mother memory seen to have skip my childhood , from what I read up about AZ her memory rolled back past my childhood like it was all wipe out by the disease .
I had to read up about it , before I except it , or believed it .
Good book is to get is The simplicity of dementia .
Yes, it is completely "normal" for people with dementia to do all these things.
There is no point in trying to correct, or argue, because your Mum will be as convinced of her version of reality as you are convinced of yours.
Unless it poses some sort of risk, then just go along with the fantasies.
You will just be beating your head against a brick wall otherwise.
It's not easy when you have to listen to a loved one coming out with things that not only did not happen, but things that any rational mind can see could never have happened.
These days we just nod or say "oh yes" when dad goes into his fantasy world of manning boats down the Thames for the railway or the countries he never went to in all the years he was not in the navy.
One thing to watch for, though, is obsessional or paranoid behaviors/thoughts/delusions. These should always be reported because they can hopefuly be treated, and left to fester can rapidly become something that makes life unbearable to all concerned.
There is no point in trying to correct, or argue, because your Mum will be as convinced of her version of reality as you are convinced of yours.
Unless it poses some sort of risk, then just go along with the fantasies.
You will just be beating your head against a brick wall otherwise.
It's not easy when you have to listen to a loved one coming out with things that not only did not happen, but things that any rational mind can see could never have happened.
These days we just nod or say "oh yes" when dad goes into his fantasy world of manning boats down the Thames for the railway or the countries he never went to in all the years he was not in the navy.
One thing to watch for, though, is obsessional or paranoid behaviors/thoughts/delusions. These should always be reported because they can hopefuly be treated, and left to fester can rapidly become something that makes life unbearable to all concerned.
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sandie said:
Hello Sandie and welcome to TP,
Nebiroth has summed it up very well. I just go along with mum and her 'reality' it's far better for her as to correct her is absolutely pointless.
Nebiroth said:
This is a very valid point as at present mum is having delusional thoughts and these are causing her great distress. Mum has had medication prior for delusional thoughts and I'm really praying that it doesn't come to medicating her.
Your mum is fortunate to have you and your sister caring so well for her. You are doing a great job! Take Care, Taffy.
Hi Sandie
My mum behaved much like yours. She drifted into a world where nothing after she married her late husband in 1940 was remembered, and the early war years were highly important in her memories.
When we went to the shops in the car she always managed to say a similar thing at exactly the same point on the road. Her comment would always be fashioned round a hint of true memory, but the rest was a fairy story. There was no point in trying to make a correction. Mum was delighted to tell the tale, though it was hard to take each week.
(e.g. The big white building we passed in the distance was the memorial to her brother. The local doctor sat in THAT house window and checked if the local girls were late home at night. The insurance man lived in that house AND insurance men were always moneylenders etc etc.
It is so difficult to put into words how mum’s memory was working because, though the memories she remembered stopped in 1940, there were all the inconvenient facts to fit in round the memories… like the fact she had children whose names she remembered, and the house address was different to the one she lived in in her memories.
The main thing is to keep mum happy, and try not to become too stressed.
Clive
My mum behaved much like yours. She drifted into a world where nothing after she married her late husband in 1940 was remembered, and the early war years were highly important in her memories.
When we went to the shops in the car she always managed to say a similar thing at exactly the same point on the road. Her comment would always be fashioned round a hint of true memory, but the rest was a fairy story. There was no point in trying to make a correction. Mum was delighted to tell the tale, though it was hard to take each week.
(e.g. The big white building we passed in the distance was the memorial to her brother. The local doctor sat in THAT house window and checked if the local girls were late home at night. The insurance man lived in that house AND insurance men were always moneylenders etc etc.
It is so difficult to put into words how mum’s memory was working because, though the memories she remembered stopped in 1940, there were all the inconvenient facts to fit in round the memories… like the fact she had children whose names she remembered, and the house address was different to the one she lived in in her memories.
The main thing is to keep mum happy, and try not to become too stressed.
Clive
Hello again, I have not logged on for a few days and have just picked up all the very helpful responses. Mum has been having these fantsies for a while now, every little thing seems to start her off and yes, journeys are often a trigger for quite amazing stories about one thing or another.Unfortunatly, she has started to be quite disparaging about other family members. For example when my nephew and his family went to visit mum around xmas time aparently they were only after her money. She was also recently heard to say that no one looks after her and her children never visit! It often seems like a thankless task. Ho hum!!
My mother was once in that stage of paranoia , every one stealing her things , seem to on for years . then now she slip into another stage all past forgotten , but for the reality she live in her mind , its all horoscopes , romance , will she marry a man she like at day center, and that another woman at day center keep talking to him , because she wants to take him away from her (paranoia delusion ) . that seem her world her reality in her mind . that all the conversation .
So I try to change the conversation to my father , my past , she go quite , then she talk , bring me into her reality and says " Will he Marry me ''
I ask myself what the point of it all , but then I think what the point of life in General, oh the philosphy of life!
So I try to change the conversation to my father , my past , she go quite , then she talk , bring me into her reality and says " Will he Marry me ''
I ask myself what the point of it all , but then I think what the point of life in General, oh the philosphy of life!
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