Mom with Alzheimer's confuses son as her husband. Any advice?

My father in law confuses his daughter with his ex wife. He is always telling her that they could run away and get married and live together again. At first it creeped us out, but, they really do look similar. We just have to try to remember that "THEY ARE SICK" and this is just one of the side effects of the illness. Deflection works best for us. Whether he is angry about dinner, or the television or whatever, we just ask him a question to change the subject. Or start telling him something funny about our day. He will start to pay attention to what you are saying and not remember being angry. Mentally it is exhausting to always keep doing this, but, I now keep a list in my head of things to tell him, so when the anger rises, I am prepared with a new story or topic. The anger is the hardest thing to deal with for us so far, but, we are managing with deflection techniques. There is a lot of helpful information on the internet about how to deflect and how to redirect the conversation. Good luck. This site is a wonderful tool to use as well. Good Luck.

This happened on a regular basis when my m-i-l lived with us. She yelled at my husband for coming out of my bedroom! Mostly, he just played along with it. When she was hospitalized with pneumonia, he even called her "Millie," which was what his father called her. Seemed to make her happy. Keeping her happy was important to us. She eventually got so bad that we had to put her into a home.

http://aja.sagepub.com/content/15/2/87.full.pdf

As my co-authored article site above entitled, Alzheimer's disease as a 'trip back in time' suggests when she time travels in her head back to your age time frame and you resemble her husband that where the mismatch occurs. As our article suggests they time travel revisiting earlier stages of their life. So that family members who are younger who resemble another family member become that member for the person with dementia. This phenomena also explains why you see AD persons talking to the mirror in their bathrooms. When they are 83 and time travel in their heads back to age 23 and look in the mirror they wonder who is this old woman in my bathroom mirror and talk to the woman. Does this make sense?

This is common with dementia. Short term memory is gone and long term memory is more intact. Perhaps you look like your Dad did at the same age? She can function in the long term memory and perhaps, doesn't even remember your Dad is no longer around. I find with my Dad, that 'correcting' sometimes triggers the anger responses. He sometimes thinks my Mom is HIS Mom, and they didn't even look alike, but he doesn't 'remember' Mom as being 88 yrs old. If I gently reorient him....or gently tell him his Mom or other relatives he speaks of, are no longer with us, he is OK with that, but other times he will insist that I don't know what I am talking about. If he argues, I just go along with him, and change the subject as it seems appropriate. Sometimes, I can reorient him to 'today' by pointing out that he is now 91 yrs old and Mom is now 88....and he will come to his own conclusion..." OH...well if I am 91, I guess my Mom cannot still be alive, right?".....Before I understood better, I used to have trouble going along with my Dad's messed up thinking....because, you know, we aren't supposed to 'lie' to our parents. But I've learned, he won't remember what I say anyhow, so, for example, he will say something like, " I need Mother's phone number, so I can talk to her..." and I won't argue, but I'll just say, " Gee, I am sorry you don't have it. How bout I bring it next time I come?" He'll say, " OK that will work. I don't have any emergency, but I just want to talk to her..." And I'll ask what he wants to talk about....and we'll start talking about his mother and whatever he wanted to share with her. He's happy that he 'can talk to her tomorrow'....and immediately forgets. I've never gone the next day and had him say, " YOU SAID you were going to bring......" He just doesn't remember the conversation....sometimes it's totally gone in just a few minutes and never comes up again. So try to see what may have made her angry...as dcoach said, or use the deflection as allofme suggests. And it IS hard to try to remember this. I find if I lead a conversation with Dad to talking about anything related to 'long ago'....we have GREAT conversations.....so when she thinks you are your dad, try talking with her on that level and ask something like, " Well, what was one of the things we used to do together that you remember the best?" or " remember when went on that trip to ..... what did you enjoy most about it?" or just have conversations as though you ARE your dad that reaffirms their life together and how much she was loved....or IS loved.....

Wow it does make you wonder why she got so mad at you when she thought you were her husband doesn't it? But then again I guess I'd rather have her mad at me than trying to smooch instead! Maybe it's time to take her back to her doctor and at least make sure she doesn't have a UTI to add to the Alzheimer's. Also maybe it's time to revisit the idea of the meds she's on and whether they're working or not. You know she's only going to get worse, so gotta think of the future medications etc. Could your wife have stepped in when she started getting so mad at you and distracted or deflected her anger? Or I wonder if when she saw another woman in the midst she would've gone off the deep end totally and tried to kill you both. Hmmm Either way, get her back to the doctor for an evaluation if you can.

I am sorry for situation, my is 97 , says I am her older sister and takes all her anger out on me. I have learned to just accept it and not think about what she says or does. Of course she has never been violent. That comes with loss of memory and focus. She is still your Mom and you know who you are . So just love at her worst or best whatever . I hope you the best . It is so hard on you ,I know

You have to understand that at that moment to her, you are really her husband and anything you do to try to convince her otherwise will only make the situation worse. You and your wife are going to have to come to grips with that or put her in a facility that can. It is a disease and your mother can't change her reality of the moment and neither can you. You as a person with a whole mind have to deal with it the best you can.

Just try to imagine how you would react if your wife and everyone else in your life suddenly told you that your wife was actually your daughter and not your wife and to top it off there was a strange man in your house who everyone said was your wife's real husband.

Why did she become angry? Was it in response to you telling her that she was wrong and you were her son? Understanding the trigger for the behavior can help us create a path perhaps less likely to lead to difficult situations.

I hear this is very common for many of the reasons stated above. Try to go along with it for the moment...listen and let her say her piece, reminice or talk to you like you are the husband and then leave the room and come back later, likely the moment will pass and you can move onto something else.

Trying to correct her if she has dementia or ALZ won't help and just frustrate her.

It's creepy, but not uncommon.

CM
Watch out dementia may be catching!!!!!!!!!!!!! or have you been sampling that wine?