false memories(1)

califsealion

Hi all!  I'm new here.

My mom was diagnosed with mild dementia last December, they thought probably Alzheimer's, but maybe some vascular dementia also.  I live with her, but she is fairly high functioning.

The thing that has caught me most off guard recently, she started telling me about when she went to Israel.  She's never been to Israel.  She's been afraid to travel to Israel.  I've been multiple times.  I'm thinking she may be confused with Greece or Italy.

I can understand remembering things incorrectly, but it seems weird to remember something that totally didn't happen.  Is this something that happens?

M1

Welcome sealion, and yes, it's called confabulating-making up stuff that never happened. I've just recently started seeing it in my partner, who has recently entered stage 5. Like just this evening we were watching a PBS documentary about the history of vaccinations, and she was convinced that she was the first person in her little Texas town to ever get smallpox vaccine. Nowhere near true, but not worth arguing about.  She's getting very susceptible to things she hears on television, I'm going to really have to watch that. Convinced today she needed to rush out and buy gasoline, for instance.  So yes, it's definitely a thing....

MelHelp

Hello....my dad (LBD) will often talk about things that haven't happened. Sometimes its places he been to (he actually hasn't) or conversation/fights he thinks happened, or the most common for him that he is on his motorcycle trying to get home and encounter some issue. 

I don't know what causes theses instances, whether its dreams, delusions, or some misfiring because of the dementia. But it does happen

towhee

Hi Calisealion, welcome to the forum. Yes, this happens, it is not unusual. The technical term is "confabulation". She is not doing this deliberately, nor does she know she is doing it. In very general terms, her memory has holes and missed connections, and her brain is trying its best to make sense of things, sometimes by putting things together that don't belong together. I think here, you have probably told her about your trips to Israel and she is getting those mixed up with her trips elsewhere. It's best not to correct her, it would just make her feel bad. This can sometimes happen with television shows, they can believe what happened on TV happened to them, so you might want to be careful with the news and violent shows.

There is an article available online for free called "Understanding the dementia experience". It is very good for giving you a feel for behaviors and understanding why they happen.

Take care-

Arrowhead

Let her. Ask her about it. Let her live in her world, it's all she has.

harshedbuzz

Calisealion-

Yes, false memories- confabulations- do happen with dementia.

My dad had these like it was his job. Confabulations are a hallmark of one of his dementias.

A typical confabulation of dad's had the scaffolding of truth, but his memory was incomplete and back-filled with details from other events or situations. Early on, to someone who didn't know the back-story, they made sense. I recall him regaling a car salesman with a tale of getting a babysitter while staying in Cape May and taking his Miata out for a drive along the coast on a warm starlit evening. The story was a mishmash- the night in question happened on Cape Ann in 1960 in a TR3 according to my Mother. By the time he was in Cape May, he had teenager who didn't need babysitting and was driving an MGB. The Miata was in Florida during their retirement and it was actually my mom's car and she was the only one who drove it aside from me if I asked nicely. But the man to whom he was talking accepted it as real. 

As his dementia progressed, the confabulations tended to put him in the role of protagonist and became less believable even to those who didn't know his history. He co-opted my mom's pointing out a non-existent scar on his elbow and the flood that destroyed my first home. 

It is also possible the glitch is a word retrieval deficits confusing Israel and Italy.

HB

jfkoc

Yes. Ask her what she liked best about the trip etc. 

We went to the Bahamas and my husband was so glad to be back in Key West where he had some of his Naval pilot training. He could hardly stop talking about it and reliving it all.  It was kind of wonderful.

Wonderer

My LO has just started this and it threw me off balance the first time she did it. She has repeated the same made up story several times and that was the thing that made it so strange. Since then I have gotten used to the stories that she tells and retells. Sometimes they are the same and other times they are slightly different.

Another thing she is doing is going into every nook and cranny of the house and "collecting" things. She loves to bring her yarn up from her craft room and look at it over and over - we talk about the color and the texture and what she will make with it and for whom. I love the discovery and flow she gets into - lovely to be a part of it.

Cobalt

My son who is 41 and has EO began confabulating about a year ago and has not stopped or slowed down.  I've had to talk with all caregivers and his therapists, medical folks and family to be sure they understand that about 90% of the time he "may" remember things somewhat accurately.  BUT that last 10% of the time he is telling crazy tales, well those can be a doozy.  Especially when they are awful, like saying something a caregiver "did" that is absolutely not possible.  

I ask staff to tell me when they hear anything outrageous so we can pass it on to all of us.  It does take a while to figure out what is confabulation, which is completely different than lying.  With confabulation, the person really believes they are remembering something and you can't talk them out of it.  Distraction is a good way to put a stop to it when it happens.  Another thing that helps is to ask all caregivers and family to try not to react too much when it happens.  If there is reduced drama, that is a good practice.

Many times it is fairly "innocent":  my son wants to avoid a shower and insists that the earlier staff already gave him one.  He's throwing a fit but the staff then asks me calmly and I answer calmly.  My son will still try to get his way, but because I came by to calmly say that he really didn't have a shower earlier, he's gotten distracted and gives up.

Rescue mom

To the OPs question, yes, making up stories about the past (and almost present) is quite common. Usually it’s best to just go along with it.

 There’s no point in arguing or trying to convince her she did not take that trip, their brains cannot handle logic anymore. And what’s the harm? It usually doesn’t hurt anyone for her to think that. 

In cases where there may actually be harm—such as accusing someone else of wrongdoing they could not possibly have done—hopefully that can be handled quietly with the person involved, if need be.

Cobalt

Glad you mentioned this problem!  We get very worried if my son starts telling other that one of his caregivers did this _________________ and it sounds perfectly dreadful.  After all, what if one of them or someone overhearing it believes a caregiver has been abusive or did something they should be fired for!  I'm glad our group of 5 caregivers all know each other and my son well enough that something bizarre my son may say will be brought up to me and I can deal with it.

On the bright side, my son has never been able to tell a lie and we all know this.  He doesn't have the ability to make up a story to cause some result.  He'd never be able to get details right or to repeat the very same story.  So while it takes getting used to, it's hard not to react as if he was telling lies.  There's no point in arguing with him, just quietly mention that it's not quite right and distract him right away.

califsealion

I appreciate everyone's input.  This is all still very new to me, so I need to poke around the website and do more learning.  Looking back, she may have had other false memories, but this one stuck out because I know it didn't happen.  Thanks everyone!

janehill21

bocaratonsprayfoam.com     will help you not to have false memories.

John_inFlorida

It is very strange to me when my DW does that. Many times she talks about things that never happened but that she "remembers".  For my DW its mostly conversations with me that never happened. Sometimes I hear her on the phone telling someone something that I said (which I never said), mostly little things that dont matter. but once telling someone that the dentist wanted to replace a crown but I said that we shouldnt do it.

Once I asked her about a particular thing she said that I told her. Something that would be totally opposite of me. I asked what did she think when I told her I never said that. She just said I think your wrong.  When she "remembers" something theres no changing her mind.