My mom sees horses in our yard during the night she goes outside and yells and bangs things. She has been hospitalized twice and each time the doctors send her home with pills that she refuses to take. She is alone during the day so I think she sleeps during the day.I tell that I don't see the horses and she becomes very angry which has increased over the last few months.
My mom has Lewy Body Dementia and has animal hallucinations. For her it is cats, rabbits and other small animals. It is a "false belief" and nothing anyone says is going to change her belief.Ever. Hallucinations are a hallmark of LBD - which is the 2nd most common dementia and very, very different than ALZ. LBD'ers are highly functioning, usually ambulatory and quite social. For my mom, her LBD is usually episodic. She was able to live in IL till about a year ago and she is mid 90's. Then the episodes just became too frequent and she refused to take her med's, so she in now in a NH. She is on Exelon & Remeron and this seems to keep her very even.
If your mom has not been evaluated by a gerontologist then please try to have that done so that they can give you a baseline on where she is on the dementia scale
and what type of dementia. The treatment approach for dementia is quite different for ALZ than for Lewy than for Vascular dementia.
Several conditions can cause hallucinations,including but not limited to, dementia.
There are medications that may help, but, of course, not if your mother doesn't take them.
In general you cannot talk a person out of beleiving what they see. She sees horses, even if you don't. Is the yard fenced? Could you walk around the yard with her in the early evening, checking that there are no loose places in the fence, any gates are locked, etc., to keep the horses out? Some people might enjoy seeing horses out their window. What is it about the situation that bothers your mother so that she wants to chase them away? Perhaps you could reassure her about that. "The horses can never break into the house," or "The rosebushes are safe -- they are too close to the fence for the horses to trample them."
Is there any harm in her attempts to chase the horses away? For example, are there neighbors close enough to be bothered by the noise? If not, maybe it is not so important to stop her.
Be sure her doctor knows of this behavior. Since UTIs can cause hallucinations, that is something to watch for and have checked out, too.
Sorry to hear about your mom having hallucinations at night. Many other caregiver and seniors experience bad behavior and hallucinations. I have attached a link to an article that can help handle these hallucinations.
How to Handle an Elderly Parent's Bad Behavior
Page 5: When Elderly Experience Hallucinations, Delusions and Paranoia
https://www.agingcare.com/articles/handle-paranoia-and-hallucinations-in-elderly-parents-138673.htm
Hope this helps,
Karie H.
AgingCare.com Team