Paranoid delusions are irrational and demonstrably untrue thoughts that involve persecution, thought control and the like. " Someone is stalking me". "You're trying to kill me with those pills". " this isn't a hospital; I'm being held in a parking garage against my will." ( that last is an actual quote from my mom).
they could be about the primary care giver.... or they could be about anybody. even a stranger.... a made up person.... could be family. could be a deceased person.
Still not sure if it's dementia, PD, mental illness, or a combination of multiple causes for mom's paranoia and delusions, still trying to figure that part out, but they have been along the lines of someone stalking her, neighbors and/or people outside spying on her and/or trying to break in and kill her, and the latest is people listening to her through her phone. She also hears voices saying persecutory things. She says she doesn't know who they are, and that they are different ones, not always the same.
Mom has Alzheimer's and vascular dementia, mid-stage. Even in the earliest stages she thought all conversations that didn't include her were conspiratorial; i.e. we were all plotting something against her, going behind her back, etc. She thinks her phone calls are bugged by her nephew. She thinks her room at memory care has camera surveillance and the staff knows when she uses the bathroom, etc. She thinks all the residents at memory care are given experimental drugs. She thinks people come into her room in her absence and "break" or steal her things, or use her toilet and forget to flush. Every time she returns to her room from a meal, group activity or whatever, she's convinced "someone" has been in her room because a door was opened or closed, or a drawer left open by 1/8 of an inch. (Although in truth, the staff sometimes cleans, empties wastebaskets, checks residents' possessions for unsafe items in their absence). Which of course just worsens the delusions.
I guess paranoid is another way of saying paranoic? I am my aunt's primary caregiver and get told all these irrational things like I 'yelled at her, stole her food, jewellery, money'. I am also 'selfish, lying, stupid', and a host of other adjectives. She doesn't seem to do this with other people who pop in for a visit and I am now being told by these others that I am making 'untrue assertions'. It feels like punishment for things I didn't do!
they could be about the primary care giver.... or they could be about anybody. even a stranger.... a made up person.... could be family. could be a deceased person.