Does the person with dementia invent memories
…or just lie?
One issue with the person who has Alzheimer’s or Dementia is that they look so good. By looking at them, you would never know they have a problem. They don’t look sick
The 36-Hour Day, from John Hopkins Press, states: “When a person has a stroke and cannot speak, we know that the stroke occurred in the speech center of the brain and destroyed cells that are necessary for the person to talk. A stroke often causes extensive damage, but to only a few areas of the brain.
==>In Dementia
, damage is done in many areas and affects many aspects of mental function. <==
A strokes damage is done all at once. Alzheimer’s disease gradually does more and more damage. …different cognitive abilities are damaged unevenly and the person will be able to do some things but not others. He may remember from long ago, but nothing from yesterday.”
Alzheimer’s begins damaging the brain many many years before the symptoms of dementia are obvious to anyone other than the person afflicted. Because his memory-loss has occurred slowly, over a long period of time, the sufferer has become very skillful at concealing his disease.
We all forget things as we age. So from time to time many of us:
- Enter a room and forget what we went after
- Meet someone we “should” know, but can’t remember their name
- Forget the word we need to finish a sentence
- Know what are car keys look like but have no idea where they are
And when these small signs of memory-loss occur, we often cover-up with a small fib or two—“Oh yes, I remember now.” “Surely, I would never forget you!”
So, likewise, the person with Alzheimer’s / dementia has done the same through the early stages of his disease. But over time, his forgetfulness
Eventually, the person with Alzheimer’s will be unable to remember things that happened earlier in the same day, such as whether he took his medication that morning or took a short trip to the store for groceries. What happened last week, will be totally gone from his memory soon. And while these memory losses continue to worsen, and eventually he will forget that he is “forgetting,” while the habit of covering-up will continue in earnest.
In time, it will become more and more difficult for the person with Alzheimer’s
To adjust to these lapses in memory and continue to cover-up any disability, he will learn to conceal more of his memory-loss. It’s not unusual for someone with Alzheimer’s to conceal their memory-loss
By this time they have invented stories
, made excuses and vowed that their memory is in-tact so many times that they believe it themselves. They repeat the same sentence over and over, lie when they forget, pretend when they can’t remember, and simply–keep using the same coping mechanism that’s worked so well for so many years.
We all have lapses of memory, more so as we age. But given a little extra time, even older people can retrieve a forgotten memory. When someone has Alzheimer’s these short-term memories are gone forever. They disappear completely.
The Memory Book
Memory Classic MemoryMoonwalking with EinsteinMemoryThe 36-Hour DayCaregiver’s Introduction to Dementia StagesLoving Someone With DementiaNever Too Late
A good memory and sound logic are both requirements for good judgment. When those skills are diminished, so is the ability to reason and make good choices. By now, he has already forgotten that he has memory issues at all, so he will believe that his decisions are good and sound and appropriate when he continues to deny his memory-loss. He will not understand that his thinking is faulty and his reasoning is no longer sound. By this stage all choice of behavior is out of his control; he believes the stories he tells and the memories he has invented.
How you react to the information the Alzheimer’s sufferer shares is up to you. A few of my choices are listed below:
- Mom told some stories about her childhood
and family that were funny and held points of truth, but were mostly false.
- Some stories Mom told were total fantasy but bothered no one; Mom carried a doll that she claimed to have kept from childhood. In truth, this doll was acquired from a neighbor’s yard sale, but Mom didn’t remember that.
- I’ve recited one of her bigger invented tales at this post: The Desert Waterfall
- Mom would tell her doctor that she’d never been hospitalized, yet she had had many surgeries including a mastectomy that she did not remember, nor did she notice the scars.
Where I draw the line on the story-telling issue is when the person with dementia
Always remember: All instances of abuse need to be investigated but if found untrue, certainly there are ways to coax the person with dementia to accept truth or guide their attention in a different direction. I’ve also discussed this issue at Post: How to Respond to False Accusations
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Have you had to deal with this issue. How did you handle story-telling or false accusations from the person with Alzheimer’s / dementia in your life?
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Dementia Caregivers Share Their Stories: A Support Group in a BookCheck PriceDancing with Dementia: My Story of Living Positively with DementiaCheck PriceDementia Beyond Drugs: Changing the Culture of CareCheck PriceAlzheimer’s 911: Help, Hope, and Healing for the CaregiversCheck PriceSpeaking DementiaCheck Price
My Mom tends to “remember” taking a shower when she has not. How do I explain to her in a loving way that she needs to bathe without making her react negatively. I have tried just putting towels out in the bathroom and saying, “hey I did laundry today and put out fresh towels if you feel like taking a shower” I have tried getting her to write it on her calendar so she can look back and see when she took a shower. She gets angry at my Dad or myself at the mere mention of bathing.
Angela, I can tell you that was the hardest thing for me with my Mom too.
I didn’t want to scold her but couldn’t get her to shower for anything! And that was so NOT my mother. She was always clean and work makup to the nines! But nope, Alzheimer’s changed all that. I would beg and plead and coax and nothing worked. It was almost like she was afraid of the water. I wondered if she had burned herself setting the temperature.
So finally, I tried turning the water one, setting it to a good cool temperature and placing a clean fluffy towel on the vanity. Then I sat down in the living room and waited.
Mom came running in, “Oh oh the water is running in the bathroom, you better turn it off.”
I looked surprised and said, “Well Mom, you told me to get it set just right for you!”
“Oh!” She looked at me, turned and went to take her shower.
Why it worked I have no idea, but I did the same thing every other day. I didn’t push my luck trying to fool her everyday.
Hope that helps,
Sandy
Thank you for your Posts. It is great knowing one is not alone in experiencing issues with a loved one.
My Mum seemed fine until she had to be hospitalised with low sodium levels; she became very confused and forgetful even denying that I had visited her in hospital on Christmas Day. She seemed to improve after they got her sodium levels balanced although she wasn’t back to normal.
Eighteen months later I went to Canada for a month (June this year) and when I returned I noticed a marked deterioration in her memory but I put it down to depression because all she talked about was how miserable she had been while I was away (no guilt there then!) although my sister only lives around the corner from my mother. She couldn’t be bothered to think about the answers to questions such as who is the Prime Minister etc.
However, now we are in October and my sister and I have increasingly become aware of ‘invented memories’; people she ‘recognises’ because she sees them walk past her flat every day; books she has ‘already read’; family news you tell her she ‘already knows’; places she says she has been to…. I could go on.
I know she needs another Dementia Assesssment (2 or 3 years ago she was diagnosed as having only ‘mild cognitive impairment’ and was discharged) but there are two issues. Firstly, she gets really wound up and uncooperative about the questions- saying I have done this before, why are you making me go through this again and can be quite rude when they ask the same question twice. My second issue is that she is so miserable in her top floor flat (with a lovely view of the sea) that she has stated she wants to go into residential care but once she has a diagnosis she will enter the treadmill of processes that may end in her being placed in an EMI Unit (Elderly Mentally Infirm) along with severe Altzheimers patients. It would frighten her to death as she looks at peoples’ eyes and is fearful at what she sees (my mother in law had Altzheimers and often became aggressive, frightening my poor mum to death by banging on her bedroom door etc. – I don’t want her to live her life in fear).
Does it matter that my Mum makes up stories? I don’t think it does but am I doing my best for her by not getting a diagnosis?
Hello Yvonne,
I’m so sorry your Mom has Alzheimer’s and is in this situation. But I certainly know how you feel. It seems to me that you are making very wise decisions and putting her interest first. All I would add is that be sure to have good supervision for her. At her stage they often wander away and become lost.
I don’t think it matters one whit if they make up stories. Others might disagree with me, but my Mom did it all the time and if I corrected her each time she would cry and cry. I just wouldn’t do that. She would tell her stories and I would listen as intently as though every word was true. I loved my Mom and it was enjoyable to be with her and listen. I knew the things she said weren’t true so her words hurt no one and she enjoyed the telling.
Thank you for visiting us and I wish you all the best with your Mom, Yvonne.
Sandy
I deal with this with my SO daily. I am a trained professional; know how to deal with dementia~Wrong.
Being a caregiver puts it all into a different light.
I can feel real crazy if I even attempt to make sense out of what I am or am not told by him. It is like dealing with a BRICK. I am all he has. I have found that I MUST not take what is said personal.
I have found out that there is support out there for me.
Hello, Oh I hear you. As much as anything, being a caregiver for someone with dementia brings up so many feelings.
And you are so right, we can’t deny them or change them– we just feel them and move on. It’s a difficult time for sure.
I think that’s one of the hardest things for us as caregivers, “trying to make sense of it, or change it” because we can’t do either one. But, that’s difficult to remember.
You are so right; you can’t take it personal and have to find support from others. Just being in a support group where you have others going through the same thing and feeling the same way is a godsend. It helped me keep my sanity about all the behaviors that dumbfounded me. Behaviors that I certainly couldn’t change.
Thank you for stopping by and sharing. All our blessings are with!
~Sandy
Observing my own mother (who had Alzheimers), I thought that her untrue statements were not so much lies, but explanations she invented to make her life logical. All day long things surprised her – her crochet hook disappeared (her fingers still remembered how to crochet, even though the result was a little strange); someone wanted to take her blood pressure; her purse was under her bed. She had no way of understanding why these things happened, but it was necessary for her to make sense of them.
Imagine living a whole day in which everything you expected didn’t happen and lots of things you didn’t expect kept happening. It would be like Alice down in the rabbit hole – a little crazy. When the crochet hook turned up in the kitchen sink, Mom said, Oh it was sticky and I wanted to rinse it off. That wasn’t true, but it probably seemed true to her because it was a logical explanation of something that was otherwise crazy.
Oh you are so right. That’s exactly what it is. They are trying to make sense out of situations that make no sense.
What amazed me most was that Mom would remember her “pretend” explanation, but never remembered whatever I told her to explain a situation.
If you think about, that had to be so frightening for them. I can’t even imagine how that must have felt, confusing and scarey– I’m sure.