What do you do when your elderly mother not just embellishes the truth but outright lies?

If your mother has had a change in mental status, it should be reported to her doctor.

She has dementia, she's not lying.. She believes it to be true..

Educate yourself about dementia.. Teepa Snow videos on youtube are wonderful.. You have a long road ahead of you so try to be prepared..

Good luck..

When Alz was beginning its path with my husband, he was also making up stories. He did serve in the military, but not to the extent he was telling people. He never served out of the states but told anyone who would listen how "rough it was in Europe" etc etc. Also a story about how his family had been in the concrete business - not true - had nothing to do with concrete. Never owned their own business for that matter. So I think this story telling (and anger if you correct them) goes with dementia or Alz.

Sounds like mom. She had vascular dementia with some pretty outrageous delusions. At the ER she told me the doctor was running a daycare in the next room and he told her so. Or that her mother was smuggled into the US on a train from Canada. Just smile and agree. They totally believe what they are saying.

There are lot of good informative articles here on the website. Here is one about Dementia and telling lies. https://www.agingcare.com/articles/How-to-handle-alzheimers-disease-lying-144204.htm

For other good articles about Alzheimer's/Dementia, go to the blue bar near the top of the page and click on SENIOR LIVING, now click on "Alzheimer's Care", now scroll through the articles to find those that match what you are going through with your Mom.

If mom has had dementia for a year it really is time for you to learn about this dreadful progressive disease.

Do not correct her.

My mother has always been an attention seeking drama queen. When mom first started making things up it mainly consisted of whitewashing her relationship with her sister and my father, also on how she took care of her mother in grandmas final years. At the time I had no clue about dementia or that my mother was exhibiting other signs as well. I didn't try to correct mom as I figured this is what she needed to do to feel okay with her past, that and there never has been any point in correcting my mother on anything. I was a bit baffled about it though as I could tell she sincerely believed the crap she was dishing out. Now, a few years later, she is still doing it - telling people things that just aren't true about me, my brother, her health and care - it's clearly an attention thing now. Some of her friends believe her at first but come to realize moms not in her right mind most of the time. I admit it hurts - some of the things she says about me and my siblings - my father. And it frustrates me with all I do for her and have given up in the past five years - that her friends believe that same crap, but everyday I'm learning to brush it off more and more. Still, I don't correct mom with the exception of one lie. Mom tries to say I was the one who took my dad from where he was living with mom - along with 18 hours a day hired caregivers - and put him in a hospice facility where he died a few days later, alone. I just can't take this one as I was moving heaven and earth to keep dad at home, where he wanted to pass with his loved ones. SHE had him transferred with the help of a hospice nurse, behind my back - on the one day in over two months I wasn't able to go sit with him. I will not take the rap for that - ever! I know it would be better if I could, but I will never forgive mom for this one - and she will know that if I have to correct her regarding the truth here, everyday for the rest of her life.

Rainmom, when it gets ugly like that, you stand up for yourself. MIL said she took care of her mother every day. So I asked her how she did that when she was in Florida all Winter and Canada all Summer. Somehow she could not find the answer.

Screamples, do you really think that your mother is embellishing stories deliberately? I think not. I suspect she really believes the stories she's telling; perhaps it's her way of compensating and enhancing her own self image as she also realizes she's getting older, more vulnerable, and less able to accomplish what she might have in the past.

Some people in their younger years need to enhance stories to boost their self image. It sounds like this is a behavioral pattern with her.

I'd just smile and compliment her on a life well lived, something like that. What good does it really do to call her out on the mistruths and embellishments? Help make her older years more enjoyable by encouraging her to believe in herself, even if the beliefs are a bit stretched. Most people do need to be proud of what we've done, one way or the other.

It sounds like mother, who has vascular dementia. For 3 or 4 years she totally rewrote history. She would take something that had a grain of truth, then change it completely. I didn't bother to correct her unless it was important (something that could hurt someone). It did make me feel like I was living in an altered reality.

She doesn't do it much anymore. I don't know why she stopped doing it. She still gets things confused, but the confabulations have stopped almost completely.

Thanks, Pamstegma. When my mother was calling me ever name in the book and telling me I had lost the right to call her "mother" for placing her in a NH, I tried to remind her that when she felt it was the thing to do for her own mother and much older sister, she put them in a nursing home against their will. Well, yeah - no response to that. Can't help but let it bug you, huh?

Yep I have pretty much the same with Mum she has VaD and Alz and has always 'embellished' the truth (aka lied!) and now it is far worse. She absolutely believes that she has never cut her own hair. The hairdresser corrected her .....so 'we aren't going there any more she's a liar'! Luckily she will have forgotten that by next week.

I used to argue, I used to correct, now I just roll the eyes and if we are out mouth the word dementia to the person who suddenly looks on with shock or admiration (depending on what Mum has said) She told one man how she had cared for her Dad after he lost a leg during the war. Well that sounds nice doesn't it? Save for the fact he lost it in WW1 before she was born!

I have found in my mothers case anyway, her mind makes up a reality that she has forgotten. I just listen and don't correct, it's not as though she is purposely telling a lie.

I am not sure that lying is part of Alzheimer's. My mother has Alzheimer's but how much she lies has decreased since she has been diagnosed and her disease progresses. My mother always suffered from depression and I think a borderline personality disorder. She would often lie about very important things to cover up her abusive behavior or manipulate situations. Once she was diagnosed with Alzheimer's I was FINALLY able to get her on anti-depressants! She became a very different person, very sweet and happy for the first time in her life. Once in awhile she will tell these elaborate delusional stories that she believes to be true - I think they are part psychotic episodes (very surreal). She might not be able to help those and believe them to be true or she maybe has told herself some whopper of a delusional lie so many times that she starts to believe it. I think often it is a combination. But for the other types of lies that she has told her whole life, she doesn't go there too often and when she does and I tell my version of what happened, she looks at me and acknowledges that the truth might be a little different than what she reported. In general, I don't correct her unless at the doctors or if I feel like she is being manipulative and hurtful by covering up past family abuse. So I can't tell you what to do other than follow your own intuition and do what you think is best for both of you. I think sometimes people with dementia knowingly lie and are manipulative at times because they think they can get by with it. Sometimes, I think they get delusional. Sometimes I think it is a combination of both. Only you know if your parent has a habit of lying, being manipulative, or abusive before the disease. I try to keep to the truth without embarrassing her when I think it is important. I try to treat her as an equal, fully functioning adult, feeling this is good for her and I spiritually. I could be wrong though. All I know - she becomes happier by the day and her disease has reversed substantially for over seven years now. We have been able to develop a very close and respectful relationship today and my mother thanks me everyday for making her life so joyful. I might not do everything right, but am doing enough right to make us both happy to be together.

Ask yourself: What difference does it make what she says? Who is being bothered by it....you or her? I recommend going along with anything she says and laugh along with her. Her memories are all mixed together in her mind. What comes out her mouth is whatever her mind is able to put together. She would love agreement, applause, confirmation, oohs and ahhs. She is losing 'who' she is so her thoughts and memories are coming out all mixed up. Again, ask yourself, "What difference does it make what she says?" Afteral, it's not about you, it's about her.

I would wonder what lies are being told about me! You might think everyone will tell you or an agency will come check things out, but nope, they likely will care and remember how she alleged this or that, funny how they never called authorities but will portray you as a lazy thief out of who knows what motive, maybe jealousy or just a evil person or a personal vendetta or perceived slight.
Document this with the Dr and video tape under the guise of nanny cam but a double safety of the behaviors you are alleging , afterwards with no proof it is anyone's gamble how things will go.

Her delusions are her perception, and her perception is her reality. If she believes it to be true, it's real.

It seems to me that everyone gets to a certain phase in this and kind of thinks like that-my mom had her mom say things and a friend of ours had told of Her mom saying the same things! Think of it as a natural phase- Eddie has it Spot On- again! Hugs to all!

It's not so easy at times to let the lies roll off. I got in from the grocery store today. After I got everything put away, I heated some chili. When I finished, Mom shook her finger at it and said to wash it, not to just put it in the sink. Did she ever look smug. I told her I always washed my things. She said I always left things for her to clean and she was tired of me doing it.

Okay, what spaceship descended? I wouldn't leave dishes in the sink mainly because she would rinse them and call them washed. I wash them totally before she can do that. The main p*sser, though, was that I do 99.9% of the work at the house. Even if I did leave a bowl, so what?

So it made me mad to hear her say this, even if she thought it might be true. So should I call her on it or just absorb the anger that goes with this type behavior?

Think of her "lies" as stories, fictional stories. Do not correct her, it serves no purpose. Go with the flow

JessieBelle - sometimes a dirty bowel is just a dirty bowel. Sometimes a dirty bowel is 99.9% of the work. A few months back my mom tried to tell me she paid for the house my family and I live in - WTF?!!! I can't even begin to imagine how her failing mind came up with that one! But - I think whether it's your mom shaking a finger at you and saying she does all the housework or my mom thinking she paid for my house - it's their warped way of keeping the power balance in a mother/daughter relationship. That somewhere in their minds they know the power has shifted to us taking care of them and these false perceptions of reality is them fighting back - trying to regain power/control. In my case I did set mom straight. If she ever repeated that crap about my house to my brother all hell would break loose.

Rainmom, mine has something similar she does. She believes that she rescued me from having to live on the streets when my marriage broke up. She can't remember all the years she asked me to come home or how bad things were here when I did. They were okay and I was the one needing help.

Sometimes she asks what I would do if I wasn't here. I simply tell her I would have my own place and be living happily. She can't get this idea out of her head that I am a pauper. I do think it is an ego defense thing with her that got fixed in her mind.

I think the OP has left the building. :(

Good conversation, though. :)

My Mom has passed and I still read the site. The whoppers are hard to deal with even after the loss. Having had a dramatic Mom who in her youth was a handful the dementia driven stories to strangers and friends caused me the most pain other than watching her slip away.My experience was Mom telling everyone who would listen that she had another daughter. To make matters worse the one she claimed went along with her! The high points included how Mom took this person in when she was 14 and pregnant and raised her. I am the same age as the person and no way it never happened. My Mom sold her a house when I was 25.They did have a friendship and also against my grain this woman called my mother, Mom later in the relationship. As we had Alz control our lives for 2 years I became the bad daughter and Mom would try to elope or make plans to run away to the other daughter. Hurt cannot describe the pain. We had to go for guardianship because the fear was I'd lose my Mom. But there were the funny confabulation stop. Not so at the time maybe, of how my Mom was driving her new found friend at Independent Living Mercedes around Palm Beach because they'd been out to dinner-all after we had to void my Mom's DL! I reacted as if my son had stolen a car, and ultimately found it to be a whopper. So as death brought some clarity I offer that if you can ignore the whoppers hang on to the knowledge this disease sucks! Oh I am a RN but my Mom told everyone I was the CEO of the hospital: try to smile.

Lying is all part of it. Mom lies about everything. Mostly to try and keep out of trouble, just like a child. We ignore most of it. Her complete conversations with her imaginary friends and then blaming it on us is the biggest riot. As long as it doesn't hurt anyone else, let it go. At the very least it is entertaining. Most people are smart enough to figure it out eventually.

I know frustrating. My Mom gets TV and dreams mixed up with reality. Then she talks like it happened to her. She watches no news or emergency shows because if there is a fire or explosion she thinks its happening in my house and gets upset. Yes, educate yourself but even then it will be frustrating. Nothing is constant.

I try not to correct but I do tell her friends to take what she says with a grain of salt.

One important thing to know about dementia is to not waste your energy arguing with dementia.

My mom was never one to tell stories. Now with her advanced dementia she uses bluffing to cover for the fact that she doesn't really remember what she did today or what happened years ago. Sometimes she simply can't find the correct words to express what she means. So things she will say can be outlandish at times. I simply acknowledge what she says and rarely correct her.

My mother will pick on one little thing to complain about, like JessieBelle's does, which is SO irritating. I do twenty chores and she will say, 'well, I see that the bucket is still out there in the yard.' Yesterday I found out that she lied to my brother, when he was picking her up for an appointment, and told him that it had been cancelled. She also blamed me for the missed appointment because ' I was not here to make sure that she got to the appointment.'
I actually had a doctor appointment of my own, for a change.
I told my brother to not believe anything that she tells him about appointments from now on.
She has not gotten to the point of complete fabrication, but I know that it's coming, because she likes attention.
With my father, at a doctor's appointment, he is forgetful, so I just shake my head 'no' when he tells the doc something that is not right. He can't see me doing it!
My mother has always been completely unreasonable and you cannot explain anything to her without her getting mad, so I guess I will just let her go on, when her mind does get that bad. Easier than trying to point out the truth.

Everyone and particularly medical personnel and caregivers must understand!
***Confabulating and Confabulations ***

In psychology, confabulation (verb: confabulate) is a memory disturbance, defined as the production of fabricated, distorted or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive.

Key factors in confabulations are there is no intent to deceive, second the person being unaware that the information is blatantly false. Confabulating is distinct from lying because there is no intent to deceive, and the person being unaware that the information is blatantly false.

Carers challenge: is what they say true? Confabulations become a far greater concern in the later stages, because confabulations are much more likely to be acted upon.

It is difficult for everyone to accept a mind is damaged.

Not only is memory damaged their ability to process thoughts and conversations is impaired.

Confabulations are a major annoyance and can be dangerous- when we the take everything in a discussion at face value. Confabulating is very frequently observed in people with Alzheimer's.