Strange

[katlady47q]

Husband with dementia often thinks I am his brother not his wife. Is this a bit unusual. I can see him thinking I am his sister or mother but not his brother.
Any thoughts. He can recognize me one minute and not the next and will ask his "brother" to call me and have me come to get him.

 

[BR_ANA]

My mother sometimes called me mother or aunt. I was a familiar face and her mind put that face on other relative.
I think it must hurt more with husband/wife. And I knew mom really loved her mom and aunt so It comforted me.

 

[canary]

Mum told me that 2 men had been to see her when it was actually my brother and his wife. She has also made comments about "that man" when it was actually a woman. I think gender confusion is part of dementia, but it must be awful when its your own husband saying this.

 

[Katrine]

MIL also gets gender confused. I know this sounds silly, but do you have long hair and wear a skirt? If you have short hair and wear trousers he may be taking his cues from a very general outline of your appearance.

As dementia progresses people's brains filter out everything they don't really need.

Effective field of vision shrinks to a small window directly in front, colours fade to grey, details of faces, hairstyle, clothing just don't seem to register. Sounds can be filtered out because they are too hard to process. The person may appear to be quite deaf and visually impaired even though mechanically they may be just average for their age.

 

[katlady47q]

That's very interesting Katrine and it may explain some of my husband's behavior.