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PollyN Asked October 2021

Do the people you care for ever fake sick for attention or because they just don’t want to move?

My mom sometimes says she doesn’t feel good or is sick. Most often when I ask what is wrong she either can’t tell me or says she has pains in her stomach. I tell her to go try to go to the bathroom and usually it is just that she needed to have a bowel movement. Sometimes it seems as though she just doesn’t want to get out of bed or maybe is trying to get attention. When I encourage her to get up and get dressed and sit in her chair, she often doesn’t even know what I am talking about when I ask her later how she is feeling. There has only been 1 day in the 6+ months she has lived with me that she actually stayed in bed all day, but even then got up at dinner and seemed fine. Today she was up sitting in her chair and said she was sick. She said her stomach hurt but that she has already gone to the bathroom. I am afraid that she will be like the boy who cried wolf, and someday (she is 88), when she really is sick I won’t really believe her.


Just wondering how common this is with dementia patients and how you all handle it. Thank you so much!

JoAnn29 Oct 2021
This is part of the desease. They have a problem expressing what they need. When it comes to pain I feel they are like small children. A small scrape you may think they were dying. Mom no longer can tell u exactly what is wrong. She has forgotten that the belly pain means she needs to go. Her mind is scrambled. There is no crying wolf here. Just the way it is.

velbowpat Oct 2021
My mother always says she has diarrhea when she doesn't want to move.
It has been her go to excuse for at least 15 years. My sibling and I have both said we would take her to doctor and sit with her in on appointment but she refused and refused and refused... so life passed her by. (Sibling no long around.)

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MJ1929 Oct 2021
The way to avoid the boy who cried wolf is for YOU not to fall into that complacency. Take everything seriously as she can't always articulate what the issue is.

cwillie Oct 2021
So - she has dementia, that means in many ways her thought process is similar to that of a small child. When she feels unwell (and lets face it at 88 I imagine those feelings are ever present) she doesn't say to herself "darned arthritis (or whatever) will feel better once I get up and move around", she just knows that she hurts RIGHT NOW. Once the pain or discomfort is relieved it is forgotten because short term memory is faulty.

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