Full conversations while dozing - what to do

LindaWeiss

Hello everyone,

My LO (mother - age 96) has what we estimate to be late Stage 5/early Stage 6 AD, diagnosed about 4 months ago. She is still living at home with constant supervision (me during the day, private-pay caregivers at night). I have a question about a sleep behavior that has become more frequent in the last month.

Mom frequently dozes in her recliner throughout the day - averaging 2 or 3 hour-long naps per day. Recently, she has begun having full conversations either to herself or directed at me while she is asleep or partially asleep. I know this is common from what I have read, and my question is about my reaction/response when her conversations are directed toward me. She will have her eyes closed while she is talking about something that is clearly not "real," and asking me questions. At first, I just didn't respond, but she would repeat the question, so I started playing along and answering the questions as best I could. Usually, the questions are so disjointed that there is no right answer in reality, so I just make up whatever I think will keep her calm and satisfied.

Does this sound like a reasonable way to handle these "conversations"? I know not to argue or try to reason with her, but the option of ignoring her didn't seem to work well and made me feel like I was being rude.

The shifting area between reality and her mind's perspective of reality is so hard to follow and anticipate, especially when I don't know 100% of what she is talking about.

Thanks so much!

Linda

TessC

Play along. My mother did that too and I'm so glad I played along because once she was gone, I remembered I never ignored her and always tried to keep her clam and happy. It doesn't matter what you say back to her, she just want to feel connected to you, so talk sweetly, agree with her and enjoy her voice. One day she may not be able to talk and your may wish you could have these "conversations"again more than anything in the world.

star26

My Dad did this too and I played along. I agree with Tess. I found these interactions to be providing TLC and were one of the easy aspects of caregiving for me. A few times my Dad would "come to" during his sleepy interaction and seemed to partially suspect he was talking nonsense and I was going along with it. That was interesting. I just smiled.

LicketyGlitz

My mom has started being much more verbal as of late, Linda, and although she speaks so softly and none of the words make sense, I too play along. She been pretty non-verbal for so long it kinda makes me happy she's having these convos.

 I just try and guess what she's talking about, or more often try and find her tone and respond with something similar. Like if she sounds upset I'll come back with "Is that bothering you? Well, we will just have to put an end to that!" You get the idea.

BarbaraG

My mother in law does this too and I just go along with the conversation.  It's like talking to a 2 year old. She talks about her mother  and father a lot and people from school. I don't know any of the people but I play along and she smiles and enjoys the conversation.   So long as she is happy,  I am happy.