Mother making serious allegations

Shelly1211

We took my 78 year-old mother of a family trip with us. The trip went well and she seemed to have a really nice time. My mother lives with my sister where she is able to take a van to a day program during the week in the city and come to our house in the suburbs with us on the weekends. Yesterday evening she told us that she witnessed our 23 year old son molesting our 12 year-old granddaughter while they were at the hotel. The accusation is ridiculous and completely false but unfortunately she believes it to be true. This has devastated our family and affected our granddaughter. My son is on a trip out of the country and I am dreading informing him- as he cares very much for his nana and will be crushed. When this blew up at our house last night I had her return home to my sister's house. I told her I loved her and that I was angry with her disease. I said her brain was telling her something that was not true and she could not be at our house if she was going to repeat the story. She simply said, "I know what I saw." and "I can't recant something that I know is true." she also upset my granddaughter by telling her to "tell the truth" and continued to stare her down. My instinct is not to have her back because of the seriousness of the allegation and the impact of the kids.

M1

Agree. And talk to her doctor about medication. Unfortunately delusions with sexual content are pretty common. An atypical antipsychotic like Seroquel may help. Don't argue or discuss with her, it's futile.

Quilting brings calm

Hopefully your granddaughter is agreeing that nothing happened. Now, without opening that whole can of worms:

I agree that your mom can no longer be around your son and granddaughter. That’s too dangerous for their mental health. Medication is all you can do for your mom because logic cannot be used with her. Your sister is going to need support since she will now be the only hands on caregiver for her.

harshedbuzz

@Shelly1211

I am so sorry you are dealing with so ugly and potentially tricky delusion. Alas, some PWD do fixate on matters of a sexual nature whether real, imagined or conflated.

My dad took a turn into completely unfiltered sexual topics which, despite medication, meant keeping his world very small. He talked a lot about the imaginary sexual shenanigans of all manner of people. A friend's mom recalled a sexual assault of a cousin from her youth and conflated (when a PWD remembers snippets of an event but not the details and inserts random people/places into a story) it into a recent attack on herself.

Sadly, I think you need to keep mom away from the younger people in the family as they may be triggering this false memory/delusion.

Were it me, I'd keep mom home lest she repeat this at her day program, but your sister may not be willing or able to do that. I would expect a dementia program would understand this behavior, but if it's more of a senior center program this could lead to an investigation of the matter.

She'll likely move on from this notion at some point, but I would consider medication to tamp this down. She could move on to other, just as harmful, delusions going forward.

HB

Shelly1211

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/226068#Comment_226068

Because I was unaware that what was happening was a delusion, I actually sat down with my granddaughter and her mother to ask her. So besides being traumatized by my mother's accusations, she was deeply hurt that I thought that of her and her uncle. So much repair work to do on my part.

I've talked with my sister about coming in on weekends to care for my mother so that she can have time away. I love my mother very much and want to spend whatever time I can with her before she is no longer able to communicate or remember me.

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

Shelly1211

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/226071#Comment_226071

So sorry to hear about your journey with your dad's illness. It certainly does make it difficult when they have to be monitored even more closely.

I've been told that things they struggled with before become more pronounced and my mother, unfortunately, has had previous delusional episodes in which she accused women of being jealous of her and men of making advances. Prior to this event, my sister informed me that she learned my mother had been told of a sexual assault of another family member. So our best guess is that she transferred that story to our two kids.

Thank you for your kind response.

Shelly1211

https://alzconnected.org/discussion/comment/226057#Comment_226057

Thank you for this advice. I will pass it along to my sister. Hopefully, a med change can make a difference.