Delusions have started for my PWD and I feel lost

Welcome to the forum. You should talk to her doctors, there are medications that can help. The atypical antipsychotics like Seroquel and risperdal are effective. Most delusions are unpleasant in character, so it would help her as well as you to try some medication.

@Joan_5704

Hi and welcome. I am sorry for your reason to be here, but pleased you found this place.

It sounds as if you have 2 distinct dementia symptoms going on.

The false memories are likely confabulations. Often, PWD will recall something that happened— often something with a highly emotional weight to it— but will have the details wrong. They might place the event in the wrong decade or include people who had no part in it.

My dad did this routinely. Early on he accused me of doing all manner of heinous things my sister or aunt had actually done. I was never his favorite person, so this felt very like re-writing history to burnish my late sister's memory. Other times, he would accuse me of stealing $360K from him— usually by selling his house too cheaply. I was struck that the amount was always the same and figured it out when I looked at his investment accounts— he'd lost exactly that amount day-trading before he forgot how to use his computer.

If the confabulations are upsetting, validating that with her might help. Ridiculous as it sounds, apologizing for stealing the money and promising never to do it again was enough to calm dad down.

Delusions are false beliefs. If she's seeing animals, that's a hallucination. I don't mean to be pedantic, but in describing this to medical people it can help you report what is going on at home. Dad's had lots of delusions— some were mean and accusatory while others were laughably grand. Validation and/or apologies work here, too.

Dad had hallucinations starting in the middle stages. He initially heard "kids upstairs carrying on at bedtime". Mom found leaving the room for a minute or so and coming back to report she'd gotten rid of them was enough to dampen it down. Dad's visual hallucinations irked him at worst (the little people walking through the wall to mess up his bathroom) but some were pleasant. He once told me off sharply when I went to sit down as his golf buddy Tony was sitting there.

Another thing that could be happening is that your grandmother is dealing with a visual processing issue. Sometimes, PWD can't correctly identify what their eyes see. The reflection on glass at night could be animals or she could be misinterpreting a shrub or chair as an animal.

Meds can be really useful for delusions and hallucinations. IME, they didn't seem to tamp down the conflated memories at all.

When you research the class of medication needed for this symptom, you will notice that atypical antipsychotics all carry a Black Box Warning for use in the elderly and those with dementia. This can be very scary to read, but in many cases the benefit of helping with painful beliefs and feelings is worth a small risk. Seroquel helped dad a lot and made it possible for him to stay at home until about 2 months before he died.

HB

Please rule out any underlying medical issues - urinalysis, bloodwork, etc. before starting medicine.

read the book “The 36 Hour Day” which was recommended by a nurse after my husband’s diagnosis. It explains the disease and gives tips for caregivers. She’s lucky to have a loving granddaughter like you.