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Mom has dementia and I am noticing that she is blending television stories with life, sometimes making her very anxious. Is this a common experience? Also, I have tried to minimize impact by blocking channels and putting a limit on the rating allowed. She has quite a bit of trouble operating the remote and the pop ups from blocking and restricting channels makes her frustrated. How do you control television while minimizing frustration for our loved ones?

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Yes, this is very common. When my mom entered that stage, I only showed her movies. Mostly old musicals... Oklahoma, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers...she also liked game shows. Just make sure nothing scary.
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For awhile my LO would get angry with some people on tv, because she didn't like what they said, what they wore, how they talked, etc. But, that was replaced before too long with a disinterest in tv altogether, as she was not able to follow what was going on. It just confused her and her formerly favorite pasttime, was no more. We would keep in on just to add interest, but, she mainly ignored it.

If the shows were making her anxious, I would try to avoid them. You could always say the cable company is cutting out a lot of channels now days. Which is true. Just program the programs that don't bother her. Is this her only issue? Because, sometimes, just about anything can cause anxiety or agitation.
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If you get cable tv, and get Animal Planet, let her watch the puppies and kittens shows. They're adorable - little fur balls romping and rolling around. They're so light hearted that I think they'd be very good entertainment for anyone.

The "Puppy Bowl", a puppy imitation of the Super Bowl, is especially amusing - little puppies romping around, stepping in the water bowl...it's really cute.
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Oh, depending on how progressed she may be, I saw a nice Yule Time DVD that I almost purchased for the MC unit that my LO is located. In fact, I think I will get it. It has a varity of winter scenes, snow fall, deer, roaring fireplace, Christmas tree, etc. and plays Christmas music. I thought it sounded great and may get one for myself too.

I like the Animal Planet idea too. I especially like the Vet shows.
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Sunnygirl, do you remember the name or title of that DVD? I think my father might enjoy it.
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TV today, even on non-cable channels is the pits. Gone are the good shows like "Carol Burnett", "Andy Williams", "Lawrence Welk", and fun comedies like "I Love Lucy".

And TV remotes keep getting more complicated. Life was so much easier when the TV had a dial and you would turn the dial to the TV show. Funny, we always found something to watch with just having 3 channels :)

I don't know if there is some way you can lock the remote onto a few really good channels, like Turner Classic Movies, and those channels that offer softer shows such as "Andy Griffith", "My Three Sons", "Love Boat", "What's My Line", etc.
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humor, I wish I knew a better way, you have a better setup already than I could figure out! Maybe instead of any live broadcast, set up a DVR (is that already an outdated term? lol) with a number of browsable items that you have preloaded, and that menu is her ‘TV guide.’  If she likely to forget she’s seen the shows or movies, and watch them again.  You could cycle a few in and out periodically.  
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We ordered some DVD’s off the Alzheimer’s Store website. One was kitties and one was nature scenes.. it was very calming.
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TV and dementia? Absolutely! I don't think it's so much mixing the two, it may seem that way, at least with my mom. look for game show channel, and decades channel if you have it, though i believe that's a local channel in the northwest, don't know if anybody else has it. they show old shows from the 50's and 60's and 70's, binge weekends, but the important thing is recording onto your dvr lots of episodes of shows and movies she likes. of course movies can then be bought on dvd and erased once you know what she wants. mom likes singing and dancing, lucy (either series, it's just lucy), golden girls, gilmore girls. movies are momma mia, burlesque, heidi... depends on what your mom's taste is, what the characters sentimentally mean to her. who's a favorite actor or actress, kids or not kids. watch her reactions, mom throws kisses to people on tv depending on character or person (like lucy). she used to love action pictures, she doesn't anymore, too much violence that scares her, so you can't go by what they used to like. sometimes she cries because she likes it, she's in the movie or relating to it, she does both. game shows used to make her think she was supposed to be winning something. if she likes it, you'll come to hate singin in the rain! :-))
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My father, before he passed was having a lot of problems with this. He was never scared of anything throughout his life and TV shows often shook him up. Mom turned on things like Antenna TV, Decades or METV because they often showed calmer shows from their past.
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Animal Planet was well loved by my mom. She also loved Andy Griffith, Reba, and I Love Lucy. Her all-time favorite was Walker, Texas Ranger -- she couldn't follow the plot lines bit loved the fight scenes or when he took off his shirt. LOL
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Teepa Snow...pls look her up....shes fantastic!!
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My grandmother, who had never watched television, came to live game shows and celebrity gossip. She was much more attuned to what was going on with Vanna White and Princess Diana than any of us, but it made her happy and kept her interest for several years.
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My husband was a U.S. WW II veteran who did not have dementia but was ill. He identified with the ambulance in M.A.S.H. and shouted: "That's my ambulance!" when it appeared. He said some W.W. II ambulances were used during the Korean War.
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My mom used to confuse television with real life. Stopped watching Law and Order, NCIS, CSI and all those crime dramas. She would become so anxious, actually fearful about safety of her family.

Youtube so Many old shows on was wonderful. Mom loved the videos of young girls perform in on shows like America's Got Talent.😁
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My fil thinks the TV is a window and gets upset with the people outside, and in wiled life movies he asks why did we move so far out here nobody comes to see us way out here. He hates DVDS because we have to change over from antenna to the dvd player and says we're messing it up. Sometimes he will dream about TV shows and ask where the people went. He got really mad when he turnd the TV to naked and afraid. He's ok with religious channels and cartoons, and the discovery Channel. Good luck.
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My mom sometimes will fall asleep I think for cat nap. When she comes to, she thinks she was with the people in the t.v. show. This happens quite often around here. She has watched Titanic and told us we all went on a cruise. Sometimes she just somehow incorporates the story into her living room with her. She is in the middle stages of dementia now. Happens all the time. Like all said above, puppies and Mayberry are better. Who would not Love Aunt B? P.S. My mom's t.v. has the weather channel symbol burned into the screen. You can see it in any channel lol!
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I would have her watch the channel called Antenna TV. It has all of the old shows, and nothing scary or offensive. Andy Griffith, Hogan's Heroes, Father Knows Best, I Dream of Jeannie, etc.
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My mother was a big fan of all the cooking shows and antiques roadshow on PBS
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In the big TV room where mom spends a lot of her time with others like her, they have the Me TV channel on - Love Boat, Andy Griffith, like Antenna TV, apparently. If there's a special or some game on, they will turn to that channel. Mom could care less at this point. I know they play special videos on Saturday afternoons. I'll check into that Animal Planet thing, sounds like a winner.
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My mom is pretty deaf and can't see well, but we finally have the tv set up so that she can hear it without blasting us out of the house. We watch Nature, Finding your Roots, As Time Goes By, and Antique Road Show. Mom also listens to audiobooks on an old iPad. We really like the Nature program about the otters. In the evening, I'll sit next to her. Occasionally I'll pull out her earbud and talk a little about the show. If I wait until the end, she's already forgotten what she's been watching!
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Yes, same problem with my mother-in-law with her Dementia. She feared what she watched even if it wasn't a violent show, so it often caused anxiety for her. We drastically reduced her tv time by replacing it with Pandora through Internet tv.

Since she no longer understood how to operate the remote control, that was also a time saver for us to turn Pandora on for her as it would play for hours - less channel changing. We played 'Spa Radio' instrumental music from Pandora, which she loved. Thereafter, most of the time she didn't miss the tv shows or movies. :-)

She passed away over a year ago now. Miss her dearly, and sometimes when I listen to the 'Spa Radio' station on Pandora, it brings good memories of her. So in the future the good memories of your loved one listening to music, could also help you when grieving your loss. :-(
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Hi there, I, too, thought my mom’s stories were much like a Law and Order show we had just watched. This happened with even the events that I would talk about with what’s new with my own family. She would then tell of what  she or her friend / deceased family member did .... essentially the same thing in her own words.  
It is very hard for someone with dementia to follow story lines of some shows, so now she watches Family Feud and a the Christmas Movies on the Hallmark channel and is so amused.
It’s completely normal. It gets more interesting as dementia progresses and I found I had to immerse myself into her world as if I were entertaining a young girl. It works. My mom gets all the family names wrong and obviously forgets who is who but somehow they end up in some of her stories. I just smile and hold back the tears. And when it’s starts getting really hard or emotional, I stop her, and throw in some complements to change the course of conversation.
Hope this helps.
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I have my Mom watch mostly Animal Planet, Food Network, Create TV, and shows on the Weather Channel. She says Michael Symon on the Food Network used to be her mailman. She said Steven Raichlen on Create TV invited her to his house for dinner.
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My mother loved reality shows, 'real housewives', the Kartrashians (she loved/hated them), entertainment reporting shows, gossip shows, and any hair and makeup makeovers. She had Lewy Body dementia and I began getting calls at home any time of the day or night complaining 'those people' were asleep in her back bedroom! What people? The Kardashians, they had a kid who was 'running up and down the hall' all night! Mom said she didn't know where they went during the day or how they were getting around but if there was a car parked on the street outside, it probably belonged to them. Joan Rivers and Ryan Seacrest and so on were also 'sleeping in the back bedroom' at times. I never knew from day to day who would be dropping by! Well, as she declined, as time went on, her part-time caregiver put on game shows and the animal shows instead, and mom kind of stopped watching tv altogether.    (After she went into a nursing home, I found 4 tvs in her house I had to dispose of, and one humongous tv in the basement with a cable box.   ??   I looked and looked and LOOKED for that old fashioned cable box, it was hidden in a closet.  I took it to the cable company to turn it in so they could close the account, and it was such an antique relic they were all laughing at it!  whew, the things that happened!)
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My mother lives in Mayberry her and her dementia very common she won't watch anything else I bought Golden Girls DVD I bought Columbo DVDs I bought Heat of the Night DVDs all the shows she used to love but the only one she watches is The Andy Griffith Show thank God for DVDs because she hates the commercials Lol
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Mom has mid-stage dementia and lives in Mayberry on The Andy Griffith Show she reprimands the characters yells at them laughs with them literally lives in the show but as long as she's happy I'm happy I've tried other shows Golden Girls she used to love it Matlock she used to love it Heat of the Night but nothing seems to make her happier then The Andy Griffith Show
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My mom used to love daytime game shows. There is a cable channel for them. Be careful with animal planet. There are a few shows that may upset her.
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My mother would get so anxious from watching some TV shows. She was a big fan of "Maid of Honor," nice light, romantic comedy. The setting ended up providing the fodder for a 2-week-long hallucination that took my mother to England to plan weddings. Findthehumor, my mother helped me find some humor. Pre-dementia, my mother was afraid to fly, never left the country, and never had a passport. During her second hallucinatory trip home, she met a man on the plane named Walter, whose English was impeccable, although he was born in Germany. Walter invited mom home to meet his hallucinatory parents. I was so grateful for my mother's hallucinations; they gave her a sense of agency, of ability. The reality was that she was bed-bound. Having the right show or movie was a help in countless ways. Holly Charbo, thanks for the Alzheimer's Store recommendation. I had no idea!
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We first figured out that my grandmother was declining into dementia years ago when she began telling us about the nice black family who had moved in across the alley from her house. The dad was a doctor and mom was a lawyer, they had all these cute kids...the real tipoff was when they began visiting her through an underground tunnel.

More recently, my husband and I were staying with my mom and she was very tired one morning. She said she had stayed up most of the night watching a very long movie about this couple who was getting married and there was lots of fighting, but it just kept going on and on and she was waiting for it to be over. Turned out she had accidentally binge-watched the reality show "My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding".

Like some of the other posters have stated here, technology and remotes began to get the better of her. We found a simple flat screen tv with an integrated DVD player for her AL suite. All she had to do was drop a disc into the player and it would start up. She has a pretty good disc collection (she's always preferred newer romantic comedies) and I was about to get her more for variety, when I realized that she wasn't even remembering her favorite movies anymore (especially "The Holiday"), and every time she watched them it was like seeing them for the first time! But also like some others have stated here, I don't think she even thinks about the tv anymore. When I go to visit her now, it's unplugged (along with the lamp) and the cord is neatly coiled.
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