My mom, 85, has dementia. Still can make her own toast, still can read. Lives next door to me, has a brother who lives with her 50% of the time. Recently, she's admitted to hearing a man singing Christmas carols and patriotic songs. I looked it up and it sounds like Musical Ear Syndrome. We're going to get her hearing aids checked. She also hears family members talking in another room when they're not there. She asks them questions, but they don't answer. Sometimes they come into her room, and their faces begin to melt. In addition, she often hears loud knocking. No, her house is not haunted. : ) She wants to know if these hallucinations mean she's going to die soon. Does anyone have experience with that? I know we can't predict a death date, but I wondered if anyone had some anecdotal evidence.
For instance, my husband was hearing voices that weren't there. Around the same time he began hiding butcher knives around our house. My concern was that the voices might be telling him to do something hurtful with the hidden knives. "Stanley," a person I know, hallucinated that he heard a mutual acquaintance, "Kingly," who was deceased, speaking into his ear. "Kingly" told him that he'd committed suicide, and "Stanley" said that he could commit suicide too. "Stanley" turned out to be mentally ill. "Kingly" didn't commit suicide- I checked it out. My mother heard voices upstairs in her house as well as piano playing. She lived five more years, and the voices wound down after a while, and soon she couldn't speak at all, so who knows if she heard them at that point!
When others hear voices, it's important to take it seriously. Get them checked out, don't ever leave them alone, and realize that they won't always tell you when they are hearing the voices, nor will they accurately be able to relate what the voices said if they have dementia.
As for whether she'll die soon, probably not, but you never know.
She didn’t have dementia though. She died from heart failure. She was sharp as a tack up until when she started talking about the hallucinations. I think not enough blood was making it to her brain anymore.