My mother is obsessed with knowing what every noise is. Is this dementia?

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My mother is obsessed with knowing what every noise is. Is this dementia?

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Also she constantly narrates what is going on around. Exp: a man is walking by, She tells me when the lady across the street is backing her car out. She tells me if he neighbor has company. She tells you the price of gas at every station. She notices every empty building. She is obsessed,with attendance at church. I will tell her something and ten seconds later she asks me what I just told her. Is this dementia?

Alzheimer's & Dementia

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I had one Aunt that used to tell my mom, in great detail, about the characters on the soaps and other shows she followed, another Aunt would put her cockatiel on the phone to talk to us. Neither one had dementia (at least not then), they just had very few other interests.

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As my mother's ability to move deteriorated and she was going out less and less, she also became obsessed with the little goings on in the cul de sac where she lives and can see out the huge kitchen window. I hate going to see her, it's just a running commentary of all the neighbor's lives. Well, at least the 4 houses she can "see". Recently the house across the street sold and she told me, on Friday, that the new neighbors were (gasp) Indian!! I said "Native American or India Indians?" She thought I would also be somewhat appalled. "Well they have VERY dark skin!" I reminded her that my next door neighbors are also Indian and are very sweet. She had nothing to worry about. Mother is very racist and so I hope she keeps that to herself--but she had to tell me about everything she'd seen them doing(!) which was basically moving into their new home and living their lives.
This, along with her obsession to greet the mailman at the door everyday makes trying to have any kind of meaningful conversation with her impossible. She can't stick to one subject any more.
Not dxed with dementia, but if she had been, it wouldn't change how she acts. I think it's hard to watch the decline up close and personal.

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I believe you are seeing the first dementia sign YOU recognize. People verbalize like this to establish the fact in their memories because they are not retaining the information just by vision alone. My personal but untestable hypothesis is that early state dementia patients try every tactic to help their memory when they are unable to retain short term memory. They would not want to admit to anyone that they are forgetting anything, and they probably don't admit it to themselves. This is part of why so many become angry and bitter - it's a defense mechanism to hold up their charade that nothing is wrong.

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My mother does this. She will look out the window and see the neighbor's car is gone. She always says, "I bet they went to see their daughter." Drives me crazy since I hear it so much. These neighbors would probably be creeped out if they knew how much she watched and reported on their movements. These neighbors are the only friends she has on the block, so she watches them a lot. Now that she stays inside all day almost every day, her voyeurism of their lives has increased. It's okay, though sometimes I want to bounce my head on the wall when she gives a report.

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Karbar, my Mom use to have a lot of assumptions about what the neighbors were doing.   She would see a truck in a neighbors driveway and assume they were moving, yada, yada, yada.   This was Mom's "realty TV" before there ever was realty TV.

Sounds like your Mom has either age related memory loss, we all get that, or the start of some type of dementia.   Mentioning everything she sees sounds like she is bored and trying to get conversations going.   It's not easy being in her world, aging isn't easy, so many things one can't do anymore without some type of help.   She's trying to grasp what she still is able to do.

What your Mom is doing reminds me of the British comedy "Keeping Up Appearances" where Hyacinth and her husband Richard are out for a drive. Hyacinth will say "Richard, watch that cow" even though the cow is out in a fenced field.   Or if someone is walking on the sidewalk, Hyacinth will say "Watch the pedestrian, Richard".   This was just Hyacinth's personality.

Read what you can about Dementia and if you see other symptoms, then you will need to concern whether Mom can live alone the rest of the year. For good articles, scroll down to the bottom of the page to the dark blue section.... on your left you will see ALZHEIMER'S CARE... click on that to find articles that may relate.

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Mom has not been diagnosed with dementia but her memory is getting worse. She is asking me things over and over. I will tell her something and 15 seconds,later she will ask me the same thing I just told her. She lives alone but stays Nov. to end of March with me. I am retired and take her to my Florida home so she is with me 24/7 for that period of time. I see her weekly the rest of the year if not more. She lost my dad in 1973 and her second husband in 2013. She was never a snoopy person. Even when my friends visit she drills them with questions. She definitely has changed. She is making errors in her checkbook now, has taken the wrong dose of insulin a couple of times. It's like everything she is thinking she has to verbalize. I see a man walking past the house, but I don'tt have to verbalize it. She sees him and she has to say it. I see a cow in a field, I say nothing, she says there is a cow in the field. It's all very strange to me.

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I have found that the smaller my mother's world has become, the more she is focused on the minutia. After she retired, all of her conversations with me were filled with detailed description of the actress the street neighbor's comings and goings and theories about his love life. It has gotten worse side she has made herself nearly housebound. I get details about everything that happens outside of her window... real and imagined.

I just think she has nothing else to fill her mind.

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Your profile says she has dementia, or is that just guessing? You don't give us much to go on so I'll just throw out a few thoughts:

Has she always been a little bit nosy but now it seems more pronounced?
Could it be you and mom spending more time together than you used to.... has she move closer to you or is she recently widowed or you have recently retired??
Could she be focusing on all the little things because she has nothing else to focus on... she doesn't get out, isn't interested in hobbies, tv, current events, etc?

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My mother is obsessed with knowing what every noise is. Is this dementia?

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