is this considered a hallucination or delusion?

numb

My hubby was watching Tv and called  me into the LR.   He asked to to ask the cat to stop laughing at him.  Our cat was curled up in a ball sleeping.

He did this months ago though my other cat was pointing at him and laughing. Really freaked me out. 

Emily 123

I'd say it's a visual hallucination.  He sees the cat but his brain is interpreting it incorrectly.

A delusion is more a belief in something--like him thinking that the cat is capable of talking.  

harshedbuzz

It sounds more hallucination, but it could be a combination of both. It could be an auditory hallucination where he hears laughing and ascribes it to the cat.

For my dad, auditory hallucinations preceded visual for a time. He heard kids playing upstairs past their bedtimes. He would be annoyed as a parent of young kids would be under the circumstances. 

His visual hallucinations were typically visitors he was happy to see- my late sister or his golf buddies- and did not upset him. This was different than earlier in the disease when his visual interpretation of nighttime reflections in windows and faces in artwork were dysfunctional- those always terrified him. 

HB

numb

Thank you both for your replies. Been so tired lately : (

SonShine Lady

My mother has Frontotemporal Dementia and has pronounced hallucinations (both visual and auditory), delusions, and paranoia.  The anti-psychotic med her neurologist prescribed worked wonders but, at home, she refused to take any medication.  She's been in memory care for a year and is stabilized on her meds so these issues are largely reduced but she still has occasional auditory hallucinations and a specific delusion.

I said that to say your husband's behavior sounds like a hallucination - either visual or auditory or mixed.  It is unnerving to witness, to say the least.  When she was still at home Mother would say out of the blue - "Those animals on the wall are turning into a line," or, "Do you see the little girl in the corner crying?"  When I said I didn't she was surprised.  Sometimes I'd be with her in the kitchen and she'd step out of the room.  When I looked around the door she was having an animated conversation, including nodding her head with....no one.  The most bizarre one was when she prepared dinner for a number of family members from out of state (who weren't there).  I wasn't present but my step-father said she "talked" to each person as she set out food - entire conversations - and was walking around very quickly that turned into 30-hours of constant movement.  She was very upset later, thinking because she didn't have meat that the men wanted, they all left angry at her.  That's when she called me very agitated saying, "Well my name is mud" - and I didn't realize it was a hallucination until things didn't sound quite right.  I asked to speak to my step-father and he said, "None of this happened."

The delusions are the worst because she thinks they are absolutely true.  Many dementia patients accuse their spouses of having an affair, as did my mother.  It began with the person being one of  her sisters-in-law in another state, then any house cleaner that came to their home, but it got worse - the day she left the house and was picked up by the police, which led to her having to go to memory care - she told the police she had to leave the house because her husband was having an affair with her daughter.  As her only child and us being so close all our lives, that was devastating for me.  The medication definitely helps and some days when I visit she is thrilled to see me but other times she sits, glaring suspiciously at me and is very cool and aloof.  It's like a dagger in the heart.  When she was in the hospital after the police found her, she told the personnel there that "My daughter is dead," later telling my step-father that "I died in a traffic accident while going to xyz city."  To this day she'll ask me, "Did you drive here?"  When I say yes she says, "I thought something happened to your car."

This disease is so cruel.