has she had tests that show no memory impairment, or is it that
no impairment is *evident*?  i would suspect the latter.  for the
delusions, ask her doc to try risperdol.  if it's too much you
can always taper her back off it.  and it does take a couple of
weeks to really take effect and stop the delusions.

I think that alzheimers among other diseases sometimes brings out a lot of
psychological junk from the "basement" of the consciousness.

One person who used to post here was astonished when his mother in law
suddenly developed a delusion that he had sexually assaulted her.   Needless
to say, he hadn't, but it was sufficiently disturbing to him that she was
placed in a facility ASAP after that.   No one could blame the man, this
sort of ranting could have caused him unbelievable legal problems, before
anyone could figure out that she was suffering from delusions.  His wishing
to avoid such a scenario was certainly understandable.

My father, who doesn't have AD in the least (at the age of 91) has always
reshuffled his memories rather conveniently.   Anything "naughty" that
either my sister or I ever did, was automatically assigned to me.   Anything
"good" or constructive or cute, was automatically assigned to my sister.
Correcting him on any of it never did a bit of good.

I became the epitome of "evil" and she became the epitome of "good" in his
mind and this has been nearly a lifelong mental habit.... one commented on
often to me privately by my mother.

When he was ill last fall with impaired circulation to his brain, these
strange deluded stereotypes became extremely evident in his consciousness,
and he suddenly became wildly abusive to me without cause, accusing me of
all sorts of nefarious crap, when I had done absolutely nothing to bring
this about.

At one point, I sat in shocked and astonished silence listening to this
tirade of unbelievable abuse and imaginings.... as he screamed about me to
my brother while my brother was on the phone with me at that time.   It was
like he was dumping out the contents of a totally deluded and hate filled
mental "basement".

Fortunately he is OK now and we are again on friendly terms, but now that I
know what is deep down in that psyche, I am never, ever going to quite feel
the same about him, ever again.

So anything you see and hear from a person with Alzheimers or even other
illnesses that affect the brain like my father's clogged artery did, don't
be too surprised.

We all have our dark and deluded corners of the mind.   When the mind begins
to deconstruct with an illness like that, you never know what might come up.

Has she been checked on the MME? Get her to take the clock test, you could
do that at home easily*.

IME failing memory can lead to delusions like this. After all, if you had
some money missing from your house, and you _knew_ that you hadnt put it
anywhere, and you _knew_ that it went missing after a relative visited, then
there are only two rational conclusions you can come to ;
One is that you are losing your marbles, the other is that the relative is a
thief.

If your mindset is such that you can't accept the former, probably it doesnt
even occur to you, the latter is the only possibility. There is an
interesting psychology book I've just been reading about how people will
fool themselves, sometimes to ridiculous lengths, such as the people with
paralysed arms (due to strokes) who deny there is anything wrong with their
arm, will even say they have lifted something up with it when asked to, even
when they havent and even when they couldnt.

The mind is strange thing and as bits of it fail, the conclusions it draws
can be bizzarre even if consistent within what it knows.

BTW, maybe agreeing your sister is a thief isnt such a good idea, how about
telling her the item or money was put away for safe keeping? "oh yes we
found taht on the floor and took it home to keep it safe". If she asks for
it back, say you'll bring it round next time. If she really does have Az
chances are she'll never ask where it is when you do visit. Some people call
this 'loving deception' I call it lying but its often necessary you'll
probably have to get more adept at it until she gets worse.

She really also ought to be checked out properly (sorry, I cant remember
(!!!) if she has been), there are some  dementia conditions (rare) where
cures are possible, and if it is Az the sooner you start something like
Aricept the better.

Good luck

Rose, if your sister isn't looking for signs of memory impairment and
if your mother is good at covering up her deficits, it is entirely
possible your mother IS  impaired, and some detective work would
reveal it.

It makes you entirely ashamed of yourself when you first get
suspicious enough to start checking. Its like always having enjoyed
perfect trust in your marriage, and suddenly getting to the point
where you start going through your husband's pockets or credit card
statements looking for evidence of infidelity. Just to think the
thought makes you feel sick and guilty - its that taboo about snooping
into the hidden spots of people's lives, particularly when we've
always trusted them, and had respect for them.

When we have a chat with our loved one (particularly a parent), most
of the time we exchange pleasantries but we don't then turn around and
check everything we might have been told for factual accuracy. We take
what we are told as true. If your mother says she had a visit from her
sister last week, you don't immediately call the sister to confirm the
visit actually happened. When your mother says she goes to church you
don't call the pastor to make sure she's actually going every Sunday
and showing up on time. If she says she had a bath, you don't go into
the bathroom and feel the towel to see if its wet. You assume she is
telling you the truth, and you assume she is fine - because she SEEMS
fine due to her personality being intact and because you want her to
be fine, and not because you have concrete evidence she IS fine.

You could have yacked on the phone with my mother in law on a daily
basis in the first years of her illness and never realized there was
anything wrong with her - and the fact she was so good at empty chit
chat fooled most of her friends for a very long time.

A typical conversation with my MIL would cover about zero in terms of
factual information. She was a lovely lady, but not well educated, had
not worked outside the home since her marriage, and was a real
homebody  - so our discussions were almost always domestic and family
related. Its not like we were debating politics  or ethics with her,
and thus in a position to detect a slip in her ability to put coherant
logic together. She would say something about the weather , ask how we
were or how work was going, comment on some dish her mother used to
make, invite us to come over, talk about getting her hair done, or
what she thought of the local Walmart, tell a story about something
that happened 40 years ago etc. etc. None of what we ever talked about
required her to have a firm grasp on her memory for recent events -
and when there WAS a slight lapse, she'd immediately do a plausable
"save" by saying something like "oh silly me, of course you told me
that".

Until we got really suspicious, and actually caught her in some major
slips (saying she'd done something when we KNEW she couldn't have) we
never bothered to check - and then we started to see the signs and
couldn't believe we'd been so blind. She'd say everything was fine
with her finances and be insulted you'd even ask, but if you rummaged
around while she was in the bathroom, you'd find evidence of unpaid
bills, jumbled papers, bounced checks, muddled bookkeeping.  She say
she'd called the doctor, but the receptionist would say the office
hadn't heard from her in a month. If you asked her about the housework
or the laundry, she'd act as though her routines were the same as
always - even if you could SEE that her clothing was dirty and the
apartment needed a good clean.

I suspect that part of it is that since people with early AD sometimes
can't recall things, they tell you what they believe to be true - they
are quite sincere, which makes their stories even more believable to
an unsuspicious person. So if they've always done laundry or banking
on Monday, if you ask them on Wednesday and they can't recall
specifically, they'll assume they must have done, be quite adament
about it, and think you are dopey for asking.

Our family doctor is a very astute guy - he was also her doctor. He is
extremely perceptive, and also very chatty, and asks lots of questions
- which is probably why he's so good at picking up on subtle
undercurrents. My mother in law saw him quite regularly - at least
monthly and usually more often - and he had NO idea until we raised it
with him that there was the slightest thing wrong with her. The
ability to carry on a social conversation can cover deficits quite
effectively, quite far into the illness.

Mary G.

Rose, if your sister isn't looking for signs of memory impairment and
if your mother is good at covering up her deficits, it is entirely
possible your mother IS  impaired, and some detective work would
reveal it.

It makes you entirely ashamed of yourself when you first get
suspicious enough to start checking. Its like always having enjoyed
perfect trust in your marriage, and suddenly getting to the point
where you start going through your husband's pockets or credit card
statements looking for evidence of infidelity. Just to think the
thought makes you feel sick and guilty - its that taboo about snooping
into the hidden spots of people's lives, particularly when we've
always trusted them, and had respect for them.

When we have a chat with our loved one (particularly a parent), most
of the time we exchange pleasantries but we don't then turn around and
check everything we might have been told for factual accuracy. We take
what we are told as true. If your mother says she had a visit from her
sister last week, you don't immediately call the sister to confirm the
visit actually happened. When your mother says she goes to church you
don't call the pastor to make sure she's actually going every Sunday
and showing up on time. If she says she had a bath, you don't go into
the bathroom and feel the towel to see if its wet. You assume she is
telling you the truth, and you assume she is fine - because she SEEMS
fine due to her personality being intact and because you want her to
be fine, and not because you have concrete evidence she IS fine.

You could have yacked on the phone with my mother in law on a daily
basis in the first years of her illness and never realized there was
anything wrong with her - and the fact she was so good at empty chit
chat fooled most of her friends for a very long time.

A typical conversation with my MIL would cover about zero in terms of
factual information. She was a lovely lady, but not well educated, had
not worked outside the home since her marriage, and was a real
homebody  - so our discussions were almost always domestic and family
related. Its not like we were debating politics  or ethics with her,
and thus in a position to detect a slip in her ability to put coherant
logic together. She would say something about the weather , ask how we
were or how work was going, comment on some dish her mother used to
make, invite us to come over, talk about getting her hair done, or
what she thought of the local Walmart, tell a story about something
that happened 40 years ago etc. etc. None of what we ever talked about
required her to have a firm grasp on her memory for recent events -
and when there WAS a slight lapse, she'd immediately do a plausable
"save" by saying something like "oh silly me, of course you told me
that".

Until we got really suspicious, and actually caught her in some major
slips (saying she'd done something when we KNEW she couldn't have) we
never bothered to check - and then we started to see the signs and
couldn't believe we'd been so blind. She'd say everything was fine
with her finances and be insulted you'd even ask, but if you rummaged
around while she was in the bathroom, you'd find evidence of unpaid
bills, jumbled papers, bounced checks, muddled bookkeeping.  She say
she'd called the doctor, but the receptionist would say the office
hadn't heard from her in a month. If you asked her about the housework
or the laundry, she'd act as though her routines were the same as
always - even if you could SEE that her clothing was dirty and the
apartment needed a good clean.

I suspect that part of it is that since people with early AD sometimes
can't recall things, they tell you what they believe to be true - they
are quite sincere, which makes their stories even more believable to
an unsuspicious person. So if they've always done laundry or banking
on Monday, if you ask them on Wednesday and they can't recall
specifically, they'll assume they must have done, be quite adament
about it, and think you are dopey for asking.

Our family doctor is a very astute guy - he was also her doctor. He is
extremely perceptive, and also very chatty, and asks lots of questions
- which is probably why he's so good at picking up on subtle
undercurrents. My mother in law saw him quite regularly - at least
monthly and usually more often - and he had NO idea until we raised it
with him that there was the slightest thing wrong with her. The
ability to carry on a social conversation can cover deficits quite
effectively, quite far into the illness.

Mary G.

Yes, exactly.   It wasn't long before my mother in law was forgetting she
had taken her pill already and was doubling up on them.

We only found out when the druggist refused to fill her prescription because
she was supposed to have more than two weeks worth left, but she'd taken
them all.

Good idea.
Thank you.
Rose
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