Delusions(12)

Dolly55

Lots of false stories of events that never took place.

Rescue mom

Are delusions a problem? Are you asking for advice? Or telling us? There might be more helpful responses (if you want that) with a bit more information.

harshedbuzz

This sounds like confabulation.

Conflated memories are often of events that happened but there are holes in the memories which the PWD will backfill with details from other times, places and people.

Confabulation is a hallmark of one of the types of dementia my dad had. He did this constantly, early on his stories felt very much like re-writing family history. He constantly ascribed my late sister's evil doings as something I did; it was almost as if he was trying to render his favorite less of a pariah by saying "everybody's doin' it". At this point, to those who didn't know better, his stories seemed eminently plausible. As he progressed in the disease, he started to internalize storylines from mom's beloved crime dramas and would report that he'd been kidnapped and murdered by the bad guys but found his way home in the wee hours. Some of his confabulations were positively amusing- he once told me all about his knee replacement surgery and recovery while pointing to a spot on his elbow. FTR, my mom was the one who had both her knees replaced- so while he was a witness it wasn't his experience. 

HB

toolbeltexpert

harshedbuzz wrote

Confabulation is a hallmark of one of the types of dementia.

Just wondering which type is it a hallmark. My dw has done some of this.

mommyandme (m&m)

I’m not sure, but a I got curious so I googled and found this:

 “Confabulation is most common in people who have Korsakoff syndrome (a type of dementia often associated with alcohol abuse), but it also has been observed in cases of Alzheimer's disease and frontotemporal dementia.”

Of course this is a random search so can’t be positive of the validity.  

harshedbuzz

toolbeltexpert wrote:

harshedbuzz wrote

Confabulation is a hallmark of one of the types of dementia.

Just wondering which type is it a hallmark. My dw has done some of this.

In dad's case, mommy&me nailed it. My dad had mixed dementia- Alzheimer's and Wernicke-Korsakoff's (WKS) which was alcohol-related in his case. But it can happen in other types of dementia as well. 

With dad, the confabulations started well before other memory issues were obvious to others. 

Rescue mom

My DH, with a Dx Alzheimer’s, has several delusions, where he insists he saw or did things that simply could not have happened, ranging from attending foreign Olympic Games  to people destroying our car., to a neighbors house burning. He can see things like the car and house are untouched, but that just means “somebody fixed them.” He’ll stick to his story no matter what, insisting “I saw it.”

I don’t try to argue or be rational about it, he cannot be rational, and those things don’t actually hurt anyone. I just say ohhhhh and change the subject.

The bad one is when he says he saw me having sex with another man, because that makes him very angry. In those cases, I try to distract him, and in some cases, can get him into another room, or I go in another room, and in a few minutes he forgets. I do worry that there will come a time when he gets physical before I can get away, but I try to be aware of that the second he starts with that delusion. Yea, it’s tiring to always be on alert…

The “confabulation” is usually also best just taken without debate, just say “how about that..” or something innocuous. Is anyone really hurt (besides feelings) or endangered by what’s being said? If not, let it go.

The kind of funny thing about that, to me, is there was a group of us, 3-4 couples,  who did a lot together before Alzheimer’s. Even at a much younger age, one guy was notorious for “stealing” somebody else’s story. In other words, if something extraordinary happened to DH, this guy would tell the story later like it happened to him.  We all just usually let him talk. Maybe there was some eye-rolling or smiles. He confabulated without the excuse of a disease

toolbeltexpert

harshedbuzz wrote:

toolbeltexpert wrote:

harshedbuzz wrote

Confabulation is a hallmark of one of the types of dementia.

Just wondering which type is it a hallmark. My dw has done some of this.

 Alzheimer's and Wernicke-Korsakoff's (WKS) 

This will make for some in depth reading

https://clinmedjournals.org/articles/ijnn/international-journal-of-neurology-and-neurotherapy-ijnn-4-070.php?jid=ijnn#:~:text=Confabulation is the creation of,relayed to others is fabricated.

Thanks everybody  I just wanted get more informed this site looks to have some good stuff for me to understand