What can I do when I ask him if he is ok he says he is fine and hes not in pain? I feel helpless. Does anyone know about this issue or have you experienced it? Please any kind of suggestions would be so helpful.
Look up "vocalization in dementia" online and you can read many case studies about this. There is a lot of guesswork about why it occurs, but what is certain is that it DOES occur, and if you go up to the blue timeline, find the search magnifying glass and type in "moaning and the elderly" you will find that the question has been asked many times here. So know that as long as there is no pain expressed, no grimacing, this is likely simply an affect that "happens" much like more sleeping and less eating in the elderly folks you care for. Best to you.
Some people with dementia make repetitive vocalizations. Anyone who has been in a facility has probably heard the repeated calls "nurse! nurse!" or "help help" or "take me to the toilet, please, please" and been appalled when these pleas are ignored but staff are aware that these people are stuck in a loop and what they are saying is not related to any real need... the woman across the hall from my mom would "sing" tunelessly for hours at a time. My own mom would repeatedly ask to be repositioned or call my name, sometimes it took playing twenty questions (would you like a,b,c,...) to figure out whether or not she actually needed anything but more often then not there was nothing I could do to soothe her. I sympathize, once you have done everything you can think of to assist it can take real stamina to just ignore it.
There was a woman in the facility where my mother did rehab that constantly screamed, “Help me! Help me!” Generally, they rolled her wheelchair right in front of the receptionist’s desk.
The staff pretty much ignored her and continued with their work. I have no idea if they tried giving her meds to calm her down or not. It was a regular thing for her to scream out everyday.
They couldn’t have let her go into the lounge area where the other residents were watching television. They wouldn’t have been able to hear the television.
Occasionally, two women who didn’t get along, would be sitting next to each other in the lounge watching television and if one would start babbling, the other one would say to me, “Please roll my chair to the other side of the room because this crazy woman is driving me mad and I can’t hear my program on tv.
I would roll her wheelchair to the other side of the room. Sometimes it was more than just babbling, they would slap each other.
There is a lot of guesswork about why it occurs, but what is certain is that it DOES occur, and if you go up to the blue timeline, find the search magnifying glass and type in "moaning and the elderly" you will find that the question has been asked many times here.
So know that as long as there is no pain expressed, no grimacing, this is likely simply an affect that "happens" much like more sleeping and less eating in the elderly folks you care for.
Best to you.
The staff pretty much ignored her and continued with their work. I have no idea if they tried giving her meds to calm her down or not. It was a regular thing for her to scream out everyday.
They couldn’t have let her go into the lounge area where the other residents were watching television. They wouldn’t have been able to hear the television.
Occasionally, two women who didn’t get along, would be sitting next to each other in the lounge watching television and if one would start babbling, the other one would say to me, “Please roll my chair to the other side of the room because this crazy woman is driving me mad and I can’t hear my program on tv.
I would roll her wheelchair to the other side of the room. Sometimes it was more than just babbling, they would slap each other.
Does he have family that you can contact to see if they want to take him to be checked out by his doctor?