Hi everyone, I have a question . MY husband and I have had my father for over a year. He is in stage 2. Is it normal for them to lie about everything? When my father goes with my sister or brother, he comes back telling me they do not feed him, they take his money and so on. He thinks his grandchildren are going to hurt him. Is all this normal? so.valentine

Its not lies. Its essentially confabulation. He can't recall what
happens, so he makes his best shot guess, based on what his brain can
come up with.

A person with memory or cognitive impairments has no insight into their
own deficits, so they can't figure out what is going on. They can't
review a situation and conclude that their memory is gone, or their
ability to think clearly is slipping.
If your mind has been intact and reliable your whole life, and strange
things start happening around you, are you going to conclude you are
going nuts, or someone is trying to play scary or mean tricks on you?
Most of us would conclude the latter before the former.

What is patently obvious to everyone around  them, they are oblivious
to. They come up with ideas that make no sense to a person with an
intact brain because their reasoner is broken, along with their memory.

So, the last thing you remember is having a wallet full of cash.
Suddenly, you look in there, and there is no money left. You can't
remember having spent it.  You can't figure out where it could have
gone. You can't look in the fridge or the cupboard full of fresh
groceries and figure out you must have bought them recently. Someone
must have taken your money! Your daughter was the last person you
remember in the house. It must have been her!

Or something like....say a person's usual routine Is to take a bath
every Tuesday night of their adult life. If they have no memory what
they did this morning, let alone Tuesday, but are unaware of that
deficit, if you ask them if they had a bath, they say, yes, definitely,
that's what I do every Tuesday. And if you pressed them and suggested
they hadn't taken a bath, they would be insulted and threatened and
upset and dig their heels in even more - because to do otherwise would
be terrifying. They would have to see themselves as totally incompetent
and at sea in a world that makes no sense, totally unable to trust any
perception they have.

When my mother in law was in assisted living, my husband once came
early to take her to a doctor's appointment and ate lunch with her
before they left. When they came back, she had NO memory of having
eaten lunch at all. Nothing my husband could say to her would convince
her otherwise. She wasn't lying. She was genuinely positive she hadn't
eaten.  This put a whole new light on various complaints she'd made
about the facility (i.e. I had called them several times to make sure
they were escorting her to meals, based on her assurances she wasn't
getting fed).

It's pointless to argue with them. You can't correct their impressions
because they have a damaged brain, and all the logic in the world won't
overcome that - and even if you were able to convince them of
something, 1/2 hour later, they would have forgotten the entire
conversation. All you do by arguing and trying to reason with them is
make them upset and yourself exasperated.

Mary

Hi everyone, I have a question . MY husband and I have had my father for
over a year. He is in stage 2. Is it normal for them to lie about
everything? When my father goes with my sister or brother, he comes back
telling me they do not feed him, they take his money and so on. He thinks
his grandchildren are going to hurt him. Is all this normal? so.valentine

yes, Mary_G has it spot on.

 Hi everyone, I have a question . MY husband and I have had my father for over a year. He is in stage 2. Is it normal for them to lie about everything? When my father goes with my sister or brother, he comes back telling me they do not feed him, they take his money and so on. He thinks his grandchildren are going to hurt him. Is all this normal? so.valentine

 In a word, yes.   They lie because they cannot remember what really happened.  

 My mother in law used to tell us all sorts of fantastic tales about her quiet little visit to the daycare center.   She told us she'd gone for a ride to NY city (2 and a half hours away!) when all she'd done is gone across town to the center.   She told us that she'd just gone out a few minutes for a ride, when she'd been gone all day.   She'd tell us she hadn't eaten, but the center served a nice big hot meal every day at noon, and she had the dessert still wrapped up in a napkin in her handbag.   They always told us whether or not she'd eaten, because we knew we couldn't count on her for a proper accounting of anything anymore.

 It isn't lying, he is trying to remember, can't, and filling in the gaps the best he can.  

 --

 Best Regards,
 Evelyn

 (to reply to me personally, remove 'sox')

My mother would lie too.   Nothing really important it just was easier for
her than trying to figure out the truth.   As others have said just change
the subject or ignore it because anything else would just give you and your
father more grief.......June

Hi everyone, I have a question . MY husband and I have had my father for
over a year. He is in stage 2. Is it normal for them to lie about
everything? When my father goes with my sister or brother, he comes back
telling me they do not feed him, they take his money and so on. He thinks
his grandchildren are going to hurt him. Is all this normal? so.valentine