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My Mum sees dead people! Seriously! I never thought I'd have a chance to work that line into conversation! Well, not just dead people, sometimes she wakes up with them, and all sorts of things. Now, I have talked extensively with her docs, and been over absolutely everything she takes, and there is just No Reason for it. She also absolutely doesn't lean towards ALZ, ( In fact, much of the time she is pretty darned sharp - can do huge numbers in her head, and remember any phone number ever issued. ) But if dementia is ... Well, just plain craziness, then yes. Every single day she wakes up and tells me who she woke up with in bed today. Dads been dead for four or five years, and often its him, which she found rather comforting, so I just let that go. No bones bodies, gore or anysuch - it's very vivid, and he looks just like he did everyday. When she touches it, it disappears, just like in the movies. But sometimes it's scary, some man she doesn't know, like a hobo. Sometimes has really BAD, vivid dreams, too. She's had a couple of strokes, my DH and I actually saw a bad one - on the way to take a cruise some years ago! And I ought to mention this : Last December I was still in Québèc, and she had 16 hour/day help 4 days a week. She falls down a lot whether I'm here or not, and when I lost her for a week and couldn't find her, I was hysterical, and booking a flight home. Then found out from a neighbour that she had been taken to the psych ward, and then a pretty terrible NH. What happened : One night she was in her den, when suddenly she thought this guy was in the room too, taunting her. I have this old friend that she just despises, and that's who she thought it was. She picked up some object, thought it was a baseball bat, and began swinging - All the way out into the dark driveway. ( Mums does NOT drink - EVER! ) A neighbour jut happened this and called an ambulance. It seemed like she got better, she's been home from there since January. I'm trying to help her, I don't want her to see scary things. Mums is superstitious and doesn't understand Catholiscm, she thinks it's all very mysterious. So one day we went to her bed, and I held a little ceremony. I made the sign of the cross, said some different prayers, sprinkled the bed with Holy water, and told her with supreme confidence that there would be no more scary ghosts. Now, either it was a supergreat placebo effect, or it really worked ( ! ), because she hasn't had one more scary ghost! Several nights ago she swears she saw a man in a raincoat ( no sign of rain in the forecast ) from an upstairs window at 3am. It's important I know if this is true, because it so happens that my neighbourhood group has advised me that we have had a number of break-ins lately. In this case, I'm inclined to believe her, but I don't know about reporting it, because she might not be all that credible. Have these strange hallucinations happened to anyone else -- Without some kind of explainable reason?

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NomdeVoyage, one quick question, is your Mom taking Ambien to make her sleep? That can cause strange dreams and sleep walking.
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Nom, it sounds like your mom have gotten less than stellar care, and I would cautiously move forward with a complete workup. You can request than new docs access the prior information.

I understand that your mom sounds lucid. My mother is STILL lucid. But dementia robs folks of the ability to reason, not the ability to sound lucid. I was totally done in y my mom's considerable verbal skills for about a year. Eventually, I noticed that she was arriving at conclusions that made no sense to me.

Feel free to ignore this, but I would further investigate dementia.
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I second the suggestion to check out Lewy Body Dementia; one of my relatives had it and repeatedly imagined her dead husband was visiting her.
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Babalou ( I just *adore* when Rickey sings that - Did you know "Babalou" has a meaning? ) that's a great question, and a really strange answer : As you know, ai wasn't here. Her jealous sister lives a few hours away, and was the only one they could get hold of. They wouldn't release her to go home to an empty house ( It has THREE flights of stairs that go upstairs! ). So rather than stay, her sister just stuck her there so she could go on back to her life. Being around Christmas, ai almost never found a ticket I could *afford*, and it took a while. So there was all kinds of confusion about her name - They got part of her name in the hospital, but not enough that they could help me find her. When she got to the NH, her DUMB sister gave her *maiden* name! The name
Misunderstanding was all cleared up, and now they claim she was never there! So no I haven't, but in this case, I DO believe her account, it makes sense to me, sure didn't sound too flattering, and she was *quite* lucid when she told me about it - and she has told the exact same story about three times, now.
🍂🍂🍁🍂🍁🍁🍂🍁🍂
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Very important to rule out Lewy body dementia, as some antipsychotic can make it worse.

Were you able to speak to the doctors who treated your mom during her "episode", or are you relying on her reporting? I found that my mother became an extremely unreliable reporter of her doctor visits, telling us that everything was fine, when in fact they weren't. But mom didn't really understand what the doctor was telling her. So you might want to check with the focs who daw her.
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Just read through the Lewy Body Dementia website. Very informative.

I would see if you can get her a workup at a teaching hospital geriatric neurology/neuropsych department.
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I seem to recall the Lewy Body dementia is characterized by bivid dreams and hallucinations, and is sometimes associated with Parkinsons. I would the a neurologist would have picked up on that though. Definitely get your mom seen by geriatrics doc who takes these symptoms seriously.
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P.S. I wonder why none of her multitude of docs have never sent her to the geriatrician? ( Certainly send her everywhere else! )
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I'm glad you're here, too : ) out of aaaaaaaall the docs, a geriatrician, no, neurologist - Loads! She mostly likely did see a geriatric doc in the NH, and that will be a good thing to ask her, though it's a sore subject. She told me that during that time ... The Episode, and for about a month after, that she WAS "Crazy", in those very words. So she knows something was very wrong. I do know that they did NOT release her from there with *any* kind of new meds to prevent it from happening again. I thought that was kind of shocking. She wonders if what happened to her was kind of a nervous breakdown?
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Has she seen a geriatrician and neurologist? Sounds like time to have her evaluated and to try some meds that will help with the delusions. How long has this been going on?
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