Dementia or UTi

sue10547

Hi I live with my mom and have an aide that helps me out so I can go to work. For a while now my mom would talk to any of her friends or family. The only problem was she was repeating the same conversations or stories. We just dealt with it! It is what it is! Until recently now she sees my dead father, she becomes easily agitated, and argumentative. I told my family to let her think that her hallucinations are real not to tell her she’s “Crazy”! That would make things worse, but to validate what she is telling you, but to change the story and redirect her. The only time we would need to intervene if it’s dangerous or not good for her. Funny thing is we do have a Neurologist appointment at the end of the month. Few months back we thought we should set it up. Talk about perfect timing. Now she does have a UTI but it’s not a full blown UTI, so we are hoping that some of the us could be the reason why she has so drastically changed. Right now it’s a waiting game.

SusanB-dil

Hi Sue - welcome to 'here', but sorry for the reason.

It could be the UTI causing the drastic issues. A 'mild case' of a UTI is still a UTI and can wreak havoc on a PWD.

Make sure you are documenting all these symptoms, as well as the changes due to possibly being the UTI, for the upcoming neurologist appt.

harshedbuzz

ttt

MN Chickadee

Sounds like probably both dementia and a UTI. The dementia would be why she has having the same conversations over and over for months, the UTI is why she has suddenly ramped up isues with hallucinations etc. UTIs can cause dementia symptoms to greatly intensify. Hopefully with antibiotics she returns to her baseline. Make sure the clinic does a urine culture to tailor the right antibiotic and get it wiped out. The neurology appt is essential. You are right regarding validating and redirecting. That's all you can do with dementia, you can't reason with them due to the deteriorating brain so you use therapeutic fibs and find workarounds. There are a lot of books and resources out there on communication techniques for PWD.