I haven’t heard anyone express this and I may be alone. Parent’s dementia scenarios are causing me confusion/misremember

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Oh yeah, I experience this all the time with my cognitively impaired parents. Nearly every other statement they make is “wrong” but it’s usually about inconsequential matters. For example, what they did or ate yesterday or what the weather was like, how long they’ve lived in their apartment, when they last fell or were sick, etc. To a stranger they sound perfectly competent, but I know they’re literally making stuff up (not on purpose of course).

I joke with DH that they’re always gaslighting me. I only correct them on major things (“Dad, Uncle Tom died 10 years ago so it must have been someone else you had lunch with yesterday”)

It’s hard to see your parents become vulnerable.

Yesterday, my mom said very sadly, “Everyone else believes me.” Everyone else is perfect strangers who don’t know or care about the details she has wildly wrong. They just want to bus the table or help her reset her password.

[Anonymous]

Once people are deep into dementia, there’s no benefit to correcting them; they simply cannot remember. It can feel intentional but it’s not, even if your loved one had a tangential relationship to the truth when they were healthy and cognitively intact.

It’s best to just let it go, or join them in their perception (unless of course it is early days and they are still living alone or managing their own care).

[Anonymous]

^when I say “join them,” I just mean accept their reality, whatever it is. “Therapeutic fibbing” can be beneficial to soothe agitation. But again, this advice is for people in more advanced stages rather than early cognitive decline.

[Anonymous]

Once people are deep into dementia, there’s no benefit to correcting them; they simply cannot remember. It can feel intentional but it’s not, even if your loved one had a tangential relationship to the truth when they were healthy and cognitively intact.

It’s best to just let it go, or join them in their perception (unless of course it is early days and they are still living alone or managing their own care).

+1. I am currently trying to convince my mom about this. My dad was telling me a story over the holidays with details that could not have possibly been true, but he was so happy to be in his element (he was always highly social, jokester, storyteller) but my mother started nitpicking, rolling her eyes, telling him he was wrong. I know caregiving is impossibly hard and she probably thought she was saving him from embarrassment. If you are in that position, please let the person with dementia enjoy telling their story. If you, as the caregiver, want to assure the listener that the story was complete garbage, do it quietly and privately later.

[Anonymous]

I do a lot of “oh, wow”, “that’s so interesting”, “I can’t believe that happened to you” (in a believable voice), “tell me more”, etc to keep my mom engaged. She believes what she tells me. I’ve learned I can’t really believe any of it, although if it’s disturbing I’ll try to debunk or find a reason she thinks things are a certain way.

She told me the entire memory care unit was locked in their rooms for days and unable to leave. Cameras in her room showed me that she would wander out in the middle of the night and most likely the staff told her to go back to her room. In her mind they were all in lockdown.

Dementia is truly the worst. I never thought I’d say this but I’d take cancer 1000 times over dementia (my dad died of cancer, at the time I thought there could be nothing worse than that then the universe said “hold my beer”).