My 93 year old mother is accusing my partner of entering her home in the middle of the night.

Everyone I've ever known who had dementia went through a phase of thinking someone was looking in their windows or sneaking into their house.

Sometimes, and elderly person can be pretty coherent, but will have crazy dreams, often about the same person and will believe the dream really happened. My grandmother was like this. She was otherwise pretty aware of what was going on around her, read the newspaper and watched the TV news. Yet she became convinced her granddaughter's FIL had purchased her home and wanted to kick her out on the street.

Definitely MAY be a symptom of progressing dementia, but if you’ve ruled out the constant threat of UTI or known sensory issues that would cause visual or hearing miscues, what remains is some faulty cognitive perception.

In your mother’s case, you have the information that both dementia and a stroke have occurred, and either or in combination, those two situations present in some elderly people with hallucinations or major invalid assumptions about interpretation of sensory input.

It will be frustrating and pretty much useless for both you and her to attempt to talk her out of belief. if you’re seeing a developing pattern and you haven’t already done so, it may be a very good time to begin thinking about supportive services for her.

If she is living by herself, you may need to assess her present safety and comfort, since it will be difficult or impossible at some point for her to determine what is really happening and how to report it to you. Does she have a reliable contact for help when she needs it?

This is a difficult stage of life for all of us, and the realization that something is wrong is painful. It sounds as though you’ve been doing a good job, and now it’s time to develop a selection of strategies to handle her changing needs as she moves into her future. If live-in support or assisted living may be in her future, learn what resources are available to her, and what her financial resources are, if you don’t already know them.

Thank you, she was at the doctor yesterday. Thats true we dont know if she had an infection when she first thinks this happened which was about a month ago. It could have cleared up. She doesnt tell us if she feels unwell as she has a fear of being in hospital. I think I need help with how to discuss it with her without getting upset. Thank you again.

Could be dementia. Have you ever spent a night in her home, things do go bump in the night, sometimes. Could be trees banging against the house in the wind, almost anything.

When was she at the doc to be checked for infection? Even if yesterday, she could have developed a new infection today. My mom had seven UTI's in 9 months. She would be clear, then, here comes another one.