Very Puzzling

[Taffy]

Hello Everyone
This is very puzzling to me, my mum who was diagnosed with alzheimers seven years ago, doesn't seem to have any problem remembering fabricated stories. When this disease started I likened her memory to a jig saw puzzle the pieces were all there but, she had trouble putting the pieces together to make a picture, then in time it was as though the pieces were getting lost as well, and now there isn't really any picture at all. But amazingly stories fabricated by mum seem to stick and stay in her memory, sometimes for a very long period of time.This is quite puzzling as mum repeats these stories quite accurate. I was wondering if anyone else have experienced similiar. Taffy

 

[DeborahBlythe]

Hello Everyone
This is very puzzling to me, my mum who was diagnosed with alzheimers seven years ago, doesn't seem to have any problem remembering fabricated stories. When this disease started I likened her memory to a jig saw puzzle the pieces were all there but, she had trouble putting the pieces together to make a picture, then in time it was as though the pieces were getting lost as well, and now there isn't really any picture at all. But amazingly stories fabricated by mum seem to stick and stay in her memory, sometimes for a very long period of time.This is quite puzzling as mum repeats these stories quite accurate. I was wondering if anyone else have experienced similiar. Taffy

Yes Taffy, I have a similar experience. When my mum slid on dusty ground and fell, breaking her wrist a few years ago, she has a permanent reminder that something happened because her wrist was not very expertly re-set. It's got a pronounced kink in it. Sometimes she asks about it and when I start to tell her the story of what happened, or if anyone else asks her, she always says she fell over a huge granite outcrop. Each time the story is told, the granite stone gets bigger! I think she likes to feel some ownership of her past and somehow that is the story she has latched onto, in the teeth of my contradiction and first hand witness! She also had a favourite delusion about having gone back to live in the buildings where she trained to be a teacher. It was perfectly harmless and if it helped her feel more secure then it was actually a benefit!

 

[jenniferpa]

Well I suppose it make sense in one way, but only if the fabricated story is plausible. But what is the rationale (if there is one, and I doubt there is) for a story which has a number of component parts, all of which if the "teller" is asked to assess them, they will admit are false, yet they make that leap to a whole story, based on the absolute opposite of what they have accepted to be true. OK: that's not clear. An example: my mother's story is that the chef at her home trained with her mother. She accepts that it is 2007, that the chef in question is in his 30's and that her mother died in 1958. She can still do some sums and if asked, will say that means he was born around 20 years after her mother had dies YET she will then say that her story is true. God knows where she got this from: some of her other tales have (small) elements of truth so maybe at some time this chef mentioned that he had worked in the town that my Grandmother worked in, or something. What I don't understand (and to be honest I've given up trying) is why she should a) have come up with this story and b) why she should hold on to it. It doesn't have any benefit for her that I can see. It's not as if she needs a story to explain the presence of someone who's presence is otherwise unexplainable: she hardly ever sees this chap. If it was a tarradiddle about one of the carers (and we have those as well) I could see some reason but this? It's a mystery.

Jennifer

 

[Margarita]

It's a mystery

That said it's all yes its a mystery to us , because we don't live in they brains . So to them its the plan & simple truth what they tell you .

because as

Nada said explanation which is not making any sense because of the dementia.

 

[Natashalou]

This no sense of time is very odd. My mother is adamant that she knows many of the carers in the home from "When I lived in Richmond"
I pointed out to her they would have been children at the time and did she know them as children. Answer, no.
She insists I am 25. Yet, she fully accepts I have a son aged 21. She refers to people as being "much" older than her when it is about 2 years. Then she says I can retire and stay at home to look after her!!

 

[Grannie G]

And there`s my husband who`s known me for 47 years and been married to me for 44 years vowing to find me a `nice young man` and referring to me as the `girl next door`.

 

[Taffy]

Thanks for the replies. It just must be snippets from their past that were significant and the imagination fills the gaps. Mum thinks that my son was abandoned as a baby, that no-one knows his mum that his dad took off so she and her mum reared him and when his dad came back for him she went to the police and they sent him packing. She tells this story everytime she sees my son we all just nod and smile but are amazed at her memory with this, for some reason this story has stuck and it's been well over a year now I guess I should be grateful for small mercies nothing much else seems to stick and it does allow her something to converse. regards Taffy.

 

[Nell]

So many things on this thread ring true for me too. Mum is often completely unable to remember something she did or saw or said 5 minutes ago, but will tell a complicated and untrue version of a story over and over again! At present her fabrications are not delusional, just wrong!

She also gets hopelessly muddled with time periods - often asks me about "people we knew before the war" !! When I point out that I wasn't born until after the war, because she didn't meet Dad till after the war, she accepts this. She does however go back to asking me about these "people" from time to time.

I also find that if she has forgotten something she'll attempt to explain it by making up a story. I find this really, really sad. I hate to see her feeling she has to make up stories to excuse her loss of memory.

As Maggie said "we don't live in their brains" so it is incredibly hard to figure out how these things can be . . . . .???

 

[Splat88]

I often find with MIL that she's gone back in time about 30 or so years, so me and my husband are in our 20's to her, even though we are early fifties. When I got her to write her grandsons birthday card (he was 26 and has just bought his first house) she talks about him being 13. She's wiped out completely her second husband who she married the same year her son and I got married. Sadly, she only goes over her first marraige, which wasn't very happy, again and again.

Yet she can remember quite clearly working in the munitions factory, and her childhood home. She seems to be going further back, as when she first came to live with us, she talked about the home in Leicester where my husband was born, and now is into her own childhood home.

I know its good to get AZ sufferers talking about the past, but on these occasions lately she has mistaken her son for her brother, and gets very confused when she's corrected. She frequently talks about earlier times and says "you remember" to us as if we were there.

 

[fearful fiona]

Hi there,

Yes I can relate to absolutely all this too - it just rings so true and I constantly ponder on what a complex thing the brain is.

My mother makes up "excuses" too and it seems that she doesn't want to admit she's wrong about anything so will get round it that way. The fabricated stories are mostly worrying. She rang one morning saying that there had been a break-in at her house but when I rushed over (as you have to) and found everything as normal she told me that she had tidied up everything (and even repaired the door/window where the thieves had got in.

Occasionally of course the fabricated stories are amusing. Only the other day my Mum commented on a nice vase and asked me "if it was a wedding present?" Only thing is I'm not married.

Over and out!

 

[Taffy]

I know its good to get AZ sufferers talking about the past, but on these occasions lately she has mistaken her son for her brother, and gets very cnfused when she's corrected. She frequently talks about earlier times and says "you remember" to us as if we were there.

Oh, This is like you are talking about my mum she also thinks her son is her brother and even calls him by her brothers name, we just go along with it now as there is no point correcting her. Also she thinks dad is her father at times,and nearly also thinks home is the place she grew up as a child. Only to familiar "you remember" or "your the one that told me" .

 

[janetruth]

My 82 year old Mum who has lived with us for 9 months and has mid-stage Alzheimers, tells wonderful stories. There is an element of truth in most of them with some bits added for effect.

The doctor prescribed Tramodol for Mums painful knees ( arthritis) she takes Celebrex ( anti-inflamatry drug) she also has Thyroxin,( for underactive thyroid )and Reminyl ( for the Alzheimers).

I asked him if these painkillers were ok to take with the other medication and he said they were a strong painkiller, thats all.
I read the side affect list and it states Confusion.
Well after 2 days on Tramodol she was living ALL THE MEMORIES IN HER HEAD.

It was like ALL the books she had ever read, films she had watched, other peoples stories, dreams etc had all been jumbled up, they would have been believed by a stranger.

I stopped giving her the Tramodol and 2 days later she is back to 'normal'

Take Care Bye for now
Janetruth x