Follow
Share

He is physically very healthy, but I'm worried that perhaps he is in the beginning stage of dementia. Has anyone else experienced this?

This question has been closed for answers. Ask a New Question.
Find Care & Housing
CONFABULATION
Anyone can do it. Not sure if it's delusional, or dementia related, but seniors will do it, especially if there is an illness or the start of dementia.
It is a negative symptom, get it checked out. Check medications. Do check for UTI.
If one lives long enough, and has seen enough, wouldn't you want to revise a little history?
On my overnight respite, visited sister and brother, we're not sure if we all remember the same thing, or would tell the same story from 3 different perspectives, but we were all growing up together. The respite was wonderful, one night in a hotel!!!!
It can be confabulation.
Helpful Answer (1)
Report

Has he been checked for a urinary tract infection? In the elderly symptoms ofetn include delusions instead of pain that we youngers experience.
Helpful Answer (1)
Report

Sounds like my Dad [94]. His college day stories are very interesting, engineering lab next to the physics lab, socializing, etc. It's like hearing scripts of the TV show "The Big Bang Theory".... but my Dad has never watched the show.

Lately the stories are twisting and turning from the original ones. Even current events within the family take on a new appearance. Strange how the mind works when one has memory issues.
Helpful Answer (0)
Report

My mother does that quite often. She can take a story that has a grain of truth and twist it into a total fabrication. I think that she believes her stories are true. I don't try to correct them. I'll know that the stories are not true, because I was there when the things were supposed to have happened. Some of the stories are about simple things like workmen that come to the house and what they told her. It sounds very real, but I will know that I was the only one dealing with the workmen. She usually goes to her bedroom when anyone is here and doesn't reappear until they are gone.

Most of her stories sound plausible. For example, she told my neighbor that we used to burn leaves in our back yard back in the old days. She said it was before there were any other houses behind us. Trouble is that the houses behind us were built before ours and we never burned leaves in our yard. I have no idea of where she came up with these scenarios.
Helpful Answer (1)
Report

Yes, my father did something I called "revisionist history" and he started doing it around when he turned 90 and got much harder to deal with. He kind of went deep into his mind and replayed something over and and over and talked about it incessantly. If he wanted some situation to be a "certain way" he would tell himself things (weird things) like another way a friend or relative died and then be convinced that it really happened the way he conjoured it up in his mind. I tried for years to get him diagnosed, but the doctors NEVER believe the daughters.
So to answer your question, yes, this can happen. Does it help to correct them? Not really. Depends on who they are trying to pass off the new reality to.
Helpful Answer (2)
Report

I suppose it's possible. Dementia can include delusions and hallucinations. My loved one occasionally would tell stories of things that happened that I know did not happen. In retrospect, I suppose she really believed the story. At the time, I thought she was lying. There's no way to know for sure.

Does he have other symptoms, like repeating, memory loss, etc?
Helpful Answer (2)
Report

This question has been closed for answers. Ask a New Question.
Ask a Question
Subscribe to
Our Newsletter