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My 92-year old mother, who refuses to see a neurologist but pretty clearly has declined from mild cognitive impairment to something between mild and moderate dementia, believes that she recently spoke to a cousin of hers who "thinks she is a terrible person" because of something that happened literally 75 years ago. I doubt he even knew about it at the time, tbh, but in any case no such recent conversation has taken place and he does not think she is a terrible person -- just the opposite, he has warm memories and feels very loving toward her. My mother is miserable and hurt by this imaginary conversation, which she is perseverating on. Is there any way I can persuade her that he does not feel that way about her, and/or that this conversation didn't happen? Could I suggest that perhaps she dreamed it or something? Any suggestions would be helpful, except I'm not going to be able to get her to a neurologist -- according to her "there's nothing they can do about it anyway." And I'm not sure she's wrong about that.
Last week I was in the NH due to an emergency with my DH Aunt. The hospice nurse and I were chatting during a lull. We talked of transport issues during some past hurricanes. The next day aunts CNA told me that aunts roommate was driving her crazy talking about needing to evacuate due to the incoming hurricane.
I knew immediatly that was my fault. That she was listening to us talk and now was in a panic that a hurricane was on its way.
I knew better than to do that because about 10 yrs ago aunts neighbor told her about receiving an obscene phone call. Within minutes when aunt retold the story it had happened to her, not the neighbor. No matter what I said she stuck to her version. I decided the best thing was to refuse to discuss it, in hopes she would forget about it. So if she brought it up, I would change the subject and she did quit mentioning it to me. One time when I walked in the room she was about to launch into it with her aide and when she saw me she stopped talking. But every one of her caregivers, even the therapist knew the story…for years, even new people. It was stuck like glue. Perhaps just something she could remember when she wanted to talk.

In both these incidents something was said, just not in the context it was stored by the one with dementia. That may or may not be true for your mom. Dementia is a tangled web.
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Can you have this cousin call her to have a pleasant chat?
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