Hard phone call last night, Dad didn't remember where he is, who I am (his only child) etc. Any thoughts?

Hi, only child here. I've been dealing with a dementia dad for 3-4 years. He has been in a memory care ALF for 2 years now. We went through periods of paranoia and confusion: thinking people were stealing from him and even crazy theories about pending wars during which mom and I would be taken hostage, etc. At one point he thought a religious cult was moving into his house. That's the point we had to make the move to memory care. We seem to have passed that stage although once in a while he comes up with weird theories about the staff & facility. It should be OK since your dad is already in a facility, but I know it's hard to digest mentally for you. It took me a while to accept my dad's wiggy changes but for me it was scary because he was still living in his home and started wandering to "escape" the bad things going on at his house. What a horrible thing this is and I don't know how long it will go on, but my dad's memory care facility is full of an odd cast of characters (the residents) with all sorts of ideas as to why they are there and where their families are. Some have been living there as long as a decade. My dad will be 81 in a couple of months but is aging rapidly this last year.

K, has your dad made the move to Memory Care that you said was about to happen in a recent post? If so, is it possible that the recent move ( or, if, inadvisably, someone has told him he's about to move) has this increased his confusion?

Can you reach out to someone at the facility today and find if they are seeing increased confusion? And perhaps have him checked out for a UTI if that's the case.

Countrymouse is right. I think we’ve mentioned to you before that hallucinations and delusions are so common with dementia patients. As time went on with my mom, she was totally consumed by them. I had to learn to just put her conversations in the back of my mind s d keep reminding myself that the mom I knew was gone. Not easy, but necessary. .

Any thoughts apart from "ouch!" do you mean? I'm so sorry to read of this.

Did you have a chance to talk with Aunt B? Did she have any insights, or any immediate concerns?

I can't begin to guess where your father's narrative was coming from last night. The only thing I can suggest is doing what you can to find out whether he is this distressed and disoriented all the time, and whether there could be any help available for that.