Can dementia patients fake having pain, etc.?

Get a Blood Pressure monitor. Get a base reading. When Mom complains about pain, take her blood pressure, it should be elevated if the pain is bad.

Dementia is a brain disease. I suspect that it will confuse those pain receptors as well. It is weird to see someone doubled in pain one minute and laughing with friends the next. You will begin to think that maybe our loved ones or patients are faking their symptoms.

I'm not a doctor or shrink, and I'm not going to negate any symptoms that someone is feeling. If the pain feels real to them, this is all that matters. I'm learning through everyone's experience here that anything goes. I don't need to argue, correct or get overly concerned with these behaviors unless there is an actual emergency.

Yes, of course people with dementia can "fake it" and even stage falls and other "emergencies" to get attention. I have seen this many, many times. A person can have dementia and not be so far gone that they can't plan and carry something out. I call this behavior "performances" and my friend, I've saw this show for 25 years.

Often on this forum I will tell a poster who is dealing with the caregiving of a needy senior with or without dementia to not play the person's attention-seeking games.

I had a care client years ago who used to stage "falls". Then she'd call me in hysterics that she needed help and like a fool, I'd go running. I was new in this line of work but caught on quick. The next time she had a "fall" I told her I would call the paramedics for her and her out-of-town daughter. She begged me not to and said if only I could just come. I did not go to her again but called the paramedics and her daughter anyway. She never staged another fall or called me again with an "emergency" because I stopped playing her get attention game. She knew what she was doing.

My mother has been doing the practiced invalid game for decades. It gets her nowhere. She tries it out on some people and when she doesn't get the desired outcome from them she will try with others and that usually fails also. Some people crave pity from others. They like others to feel sorry for them and they want to be 'babied' by someone.

Oh, hell no. You don't 'baby' an adult. If said adult is so far gone with dementia that they have regressed back into being a baby, they belong in a nursing home.

Don't play your mother's games. Encourage others not to either. A person's independence is the most important thing in the world and sometimes there needs to be some tough love to help a person retain the highest level of independence they can. Not being waited on or 'babied' might make someone angry at you. They may even grow to dislike and even hate you, but making a person do for themselves where they can and not pitying them is always the best thing for them.

Thisvis how I look at Dementia. They end up becoming like children. When I child falls and scrapes their leg, you might think they are dying. Same with a person with Dementia. Andvlike a child, they push boundaries to see what they can get away with. And the person they play, is the Caregiver. After Mom said "lets go shopping" to her friend and then when they left she fell back into her "oh poor me"...you should have said "seems funny you had no aches and pains while friend was here and you could go shopping. Seems Mom you can do more than u have lead me to believe.

Your new to this and there is a learning curve. I may just hide a camera to see just how much Mom doesvfor herself when ur gone. Then show it to her.

My daddy did this all the time. Its called showtiming - see definition:

'Show Timing', sometimes referred to as 'host/hostess mode', is when a person with dementia can display lucid and coherent behavior in front of medical professionals, in other words act as their 'normal selves', but be confused and lost around loved ones or caregivers.

She most likely is in pain. But as someone else has written try the blood pressure method and if she is in real pain her blood pressure will rise. If you have to give a placebo to satisfy her to see if that works - yes I did say that! We can only try things it is all a trial and error disease! A prayer was said for you today!

My mother with dementia and lifelong narcissism could showtime and also was very manipulative . The doctor told me she was capable of both .

So yes , your mom could be faking at times .

I am not sure what stage or how advance her dementia is but the experience I had with my dad was that he had pain but not all the time. He was always, incessantly complaining about back pain but then I realized I was asking the wrong questions. Instead of asking if he was in pain, I started asking ....."is your back hurting right now?" More often than not I would get the reply ..."no it does not hurt right now, but when it does ugghhhh...." I would suggest you change your questions, and it is going to be trial and error. Could it be she forgot she took the meds earlier?

I like to believe that it was not malicious or intentional, it was, for him, just the brain and cognition deteriorating.

Your mom sounds like mine. She DOES have arthritis but she acts like she is dying sometimes. She lives with me and when she thinks I’m sleeping she can walk up and down the stairs fine…slowly but fine. If I’m awake she will moan and groan so loudly it’s crazy! I told her I was going to contact someone to put in a stair lift and she said she would refuse to use it 🙄. The other day she ‘hurt’ her knee, refused to see a doctor but needed to use her cane. At times though she forgets and walks fine without her cane. Most of the time I just don’t respond to her complaining. It seems mostly to try and get attention. I feel bad but I cannot feed into it or I will go crazy myself.

Yes. Example: My mother said she was suffering terribly. So weak. So much pain. Couldn’t walk. Totally helpless. Needed both me and my husband to do everything for her that day. Then a neighbour drove up and she got up, tossed the cane and scampered over to the car. We were gobsmacked.

We started photo-documenting to help get her into a care home. (she showtimed so well she even talked her way out of a suicide psych hold)

We were so frustrated and resentful,

People think of dementia as loss of memory and loss of skills. We found it removed my mother’s filter such that she would say or do anything in order to get what she wanted when she wanted it.

Can dementia cause imaginary pain?

Finally, mental pain can be exasperated by dementia. Patients may experience significant loss or grief, even when confused or disoriented. This can lead to social, spiritual or emotional pain, which is felt physically like other types of pain.

Mother needs to be assessed by a physician.

Gena / Touch Matters