How can I let people know that my mother is making up stories which create problems for me and others?

So you said it yourself. Her dementia has advanced.
So when you get calls or texts from well meaning folks who visited and got the stories just tell them "Well, sadly, her dementia has advanced, according to doc. Just enjoy the stories and nod your heads".
Best to you. So very sorry for this.

My mother is very articulate and speaks with confidence, in spite of her advanced dementia. She has fooled many, including doctors, into thinking she was fine and I was gaslighting everyone about her. So frustrating!

I took a pity approach when talking with others. “It’s so sad that my mother’s dementia has caused her mind to blend so much fiction into her reality. We’re doing our best to keep her from upsetting herself.”

Every time I visit her in care I get an earful about the awful things her daughter (me) is doing. On the upside, although bedridden, her broken brain keeps telling her she’s tired because she spent last weekend visiting NYC, she just got back from shopping with her niece, or she was up late finishing a school project. Seems she’s never bored.

Anyone who understands anything about dementia realizes elders who suffer from it are known to confabulate.

Confabulation occurs when a person with dementia creates new memories of things that never actually happened, or they alter memories of events that occur in their day-to-day life. Confabulation is a symptom linked not only to dementia but also to several other brain illnesses, including Alzheimer's disease and brain injury.

Showtiming is when a person with dementia purposefully plays down their behaviours in front of a certain person or people or during certain situations. It's very frustating for the caregiver who knows the situation to be much worse than the elder is making it out to be.

A real diagnosis of AD or dementia requires more than a 4 word test and what doctors "think" is irrelevant w/o actually testing mom! You know what they say about opinions. Get her tested with a SLUMS or MoCA mini cognition test which is pretty accurate and only takes 15 minutes. It's scored on a scale of 1-30 and depending on her score, will show where she falls on the dementia scale. My mother first scored an 18 and was accurately diagnosed with progressive dementia. She was the Queen of Showtiming and everyone thought she was sharp as a tack too.....until they asked her a REAL question and that's where the act fell apart. Chit chat w/o real CONTENT is what they're great at, nothing in depth.

As moms dementia advanced, she was confabulating wild stories of her "girls" in Memory Care Assisted Living taking her to a new hotel every night and out for fancy dinners and shows, exhausting her. In her mind, she was finally living an exciting life which was actually a nice change from her chronic decades of 24/7 complaining.

If you have to explain dementia to "people", then they are lucky not to be dealing with it firsthand. They're welcome to come care for mom anytime and see for themselves what dementia looks like, up close and personal.

PS. After reading your profile, I seriously question why you moved in with mother to care for her?? On her dime, hire in home caregivers or get her placed in Memory Care Assisted Living if you have POA and after she's properly diagnosed. You'll both be better off and mom will be safer and unable to do dangerous things any longer. Good luck.

My mother convinced a visitor that she had remarried a mere four months after the death of my dad, her soulmate and husband of 66 years. That visitor trotted off to share the news with the editor of the local Rotary Club's newsletter, and a few days later the newsletter went out to more than 100 Rotarians in her small town with an article congratulating my mother on her marriage. It even went so far as to mention that two hospital beds had been pushed together for the lovebirds in Mom's nursing home room.

Needless to say, I was horrified when I found out a few days later, those in the club who knew my mother's condition were horrified, and those who didn't know were horrified at her disrespect to my dad's memory. It was, well, horrifying.

A heartfelt apology to the family was immediately issued, the newsletter taken off their website, and the elderly and somewhat clueless editor given a new volunteer task to do. My mother was oblivious to the entire episode and continued being happily married (in her mind) to her first high school boyfriend who had been dead for 10 years already when she cooked up this whole story.

Sometimes you just have to go with the flow and correct the record when you can.

Sorry to tell you this, but if she is living with you (as per your profile), this is very likely to progress to more serious accusations, potentially even to authorities, about more heinous crimes than merely being untrustworthy or lying about how long she's been in hospital.

The accusations could be actual theft, physical abuse, abusive neglect, potentially sexual assault, and even worse. And if she's showtiming so adeptly, the accusations may even be relatively believable and create far more serious issues for you socially, as well as authorities potentially investigating the allegations.

The only real solution is to not have her living with you at all, and to keep the most meticulous possible records of all financial transactions that have to do with her. The stories and false accusations will keep coming, but at least they will no longer be quite so believable, if she's not under your care and every interaction you have with her being overseen in a facility.

Otherwise, mentally prepare yourself to constantly be on the defensive, attempting to disprove the unprovable to people who unwittingly entertain her stories. Or perhaps merely shrug them off with a dismissive comment, "She is blessed in believing so."

"Handling" my Dad got impossible a few months ago. He has created so many stories all through my life, but I never realized it until he involved me in them. He has been in LTC over a year now, after several hospitalizations for falls and breaking his hip twice. He would not allow home health to do their jobs and would not eat or drink properly. He was waited on "hand and foot" by my mom who passed almost 4 yrs ago now. He tortured her for years with stories of being "in love" with other women. His last hospitalization was an absolute horror. He had a intestinal infection and a Uti, and needed a picc line for long term antibiotics. He asked me to come to the hospital before he would consent. His Iv's were being relocated almost daily from failure. My spouse came with me when I went to the hospital thankfull, or he would never have believed what took place. We heard my dad yelling before we even reached his room. As soon as we entered the room, with his nurse, he got even louder. Never did he acknowledge me, but eventually spoke to my spouse. He was ordering me and the nurse out of his room. I attempted several times to see if I could calm him down without ANY success. It only got worse, and I couldn't speak at all or even look at my phone without him ranting at me! He was having a temper tantrum, and everyone was his enemy except my spouse. I am a retired nurse and have experienced many meltdowns from patients and residents in the past. When it's your family doing all the hell raising, dementia or whatever" it is even more awful. I was berated and accused of so many things by him that day it was unbelievable. My spouse is still in shock over it. Yes, Dad is 90 yrs old, has some mild memory lapses, and he was mad as his situation in life. Still not my fault. I've dealt with his "altered imagination" all my life and now I am done with it. It makes me sad to have to do it at this late stage in his life (and mine at 66 yrs old), but his mind has no limits. He is telling everyone now in LTC I hit him while he was in the hospital! He actually hit his nurse when she attempted to flush his IV line! He tells my sister that he is "intimate" with his nurse and she sleeps with him in his room. Not true of course. He has no remorse and will go on to create whatever he wants to believe. I made the decision to not be in his presence at this time and have no plans to see him again at this time.

I agree, those 4 word tests are useless! These people don’t deal with her on a day to day baseless. I didn’t even find out my mom was trashing me until after she died when I saw the notes from some of the CNAS & hospice workers.

I took care of her for years & it really hurts that she said those things about me. I know she had dementia but even still…..

Sometimes dementia patients do what’s called “Showtiming”. They can put on a real good act for others, but those close to them see the real deterioration.

Try and have another evaluation done…maybe by a different Dr just to see what they think. Explain to Dr you see big change after anesthesia and hospital time.

As for “handling it”, there’s not much you can do. Try to turn a blind ear to her stories. You can always investigate things for yourself to figure out what’s true.
The fact that she told people there’s a lot of sexual activity in the place could be
something she’s heard somewhere, because it can and does happen. Perhaps not in the place she’s in currently, but it is a known fact.

Dont try to correct her, don’t argue with her. When’s she’s out of earshot, you can try and explain it to the people she’s told stories to, but be prepared for them not to believe you. It’s frustrating, but there’s not a lot you can do. Once she has the diagnosis of dementia, you will be more prepared to explain to others that they need to take what she says with a grain of salt. You can also get financial, durable and medical POA so that you are able to handle her finances and medical business. If anyone squabbles over that you can then say she was diagnosed with dementia and can no longer handle stuff and you’ve gotten POA. Further explain, the dementia cause her to tell stories that aren’t true. If they still don’t believe you, turn a blind eye and eat to them. Do what you can for your mom’s safety and care. Everyone else can buzz off.

The behavior is called "Confabulation".
So sorry that you are the target, and in the line of fire from your Mom.

So sorry you are going through this. Every case of dementia I have either witnessed in real life, or read about on this forum ultimately ends up with the dementia patient accusing someone close of stealing from them (or otherwise harming them). It's heartbreaking.

The best you can do is keep good documentation, especially if you are involved in her finances. And keep speaking your truth. Even if you can't get her to believe or agree with you, eventually the professionals she is working with with recognize what is happening.

It's tough that she told a sexually inappropriate story to your kids. I don't know how old they are, but you can explain that she is sick, and that her illness is causing her to believe things to be true that never happened.

You have our sympathy and support. This is very, very hard.