Dementia Support Group
Dementia is the progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage or disease in the brain beyond what might be expected from normal aging. Particularly affected areas may be memory, attention, language and problem solving, although particularly in the later stages of the condition, affected persons may be disoriented in time, place and person (not knowing who they...
My Mom insists local nursing home is calling her and saying they're coming to pick her up. Even if I leave the house for five minutes, they have called and told her that! Its driving me crazy(20x/day for a year), but I can only imagine how scared it makes her!( She put her Dad with Dementia in this same home 30 yrs ago so I think that is where this comes from!) I've tried distracting her( never works about ANYTHING- when she gets something in her mind and I try to talk about something else, she gets very angry!), reassuring her(I'm a liar and a sneak, the whole family has tried reassuring her(they're all liars and sneaks). I've tried physically removing the phones from the house ( she still hears them), showed her the phone bill. called the phone company to find out what the number and date of our last call was and let her listen to the message( the phone company is lying, too!).I've even went so far as to call the nursing home and explained the situation; they were very understanding...phoned her personally and even sent her a certified letter stating that they were not calling her and it was not their practice to pick people up. Her answer to that is that she doesn't trust them either and if it really isn't them, then somebody is watching the house and calling her to harass her as soon as I leave! I really don't know what else to try! Like I said, as bad as it is for me, I know it's worse for her! Anybody have any suggestions as to what else I can try? Thank you!
My mother also sometimes gets fixated on something as part of her advanced-stage Parkinson's Disease. I, too, have done all I can to rationalize with her when she gpes down such a path. Often it has helped, but sometimes it doesn't. The best thing to then do (for her AND for you) is to assure her that what she believes is being done is not so and then follow it up with something completely different to redirect her attention, something non-stressful.
As my local Alzheimer's group advises its caregivers, "don't try to rationalize with an irrational person"....or, in my case and perhaps yours, with someone who, from time to time, is fixated on something that is inaccurate.
Also do some research into your mother's medications, which can contribute to or even cause obsessiveness tendencies or even paranoia. Some medication dosage "tweeking" or a complete change, if possible, may make a big difference.
Sending you my best wishes. This is difficult stuff, for sure!