I have been my mom's caregiver for the past 2 years. She has been diagnosed with onset dementia. Recently, within the past couple of weeks, she is having full blown conversations with someone. She is not talking in her sleep because that comes out like gibberish. She is actually having a conversation. When I enter the room and ask her who she is talking to, she snaps back and looks at me with a blank stare and says "no one". I wonder if she's talking to family members that have gone before her. I wonder if her time is near. She is nearly blind, cannot walk, and has trouble communicating. She sleeps about 18-20 hours a day. Kind of creepy when I catch her in conversation with "someone".
Then, she discovered the full length mirror on back of a bedroom door. I hear her talking to it, such as, "how are the kids?" My 3 year old granddaughter says she is playing mirror, mirror on the wall.
My brother was here for a week from Florida and saw her talking to the mirror. He said maybe we should take it down. I then stated, who will Mom talk to? She doesn't get aggressive with it so what is the harm ? It's funny, when she talks to the mirror she doesn't slur her words but when she talks to me she gets stuck on a word and keeps repeating it.
In talking with other Caregivers and reading about this disease, it is fairly normal. Mom is healthy as a horse other than her brain doesn't function very well. If talking to that "old lady," as she refers to the person in the mirror, gives her something to do or someone to talk to what is the harm?
I first misread the headline as 'aging mother taking to spirits' and was ready to leap in with "let her drink what she likes within reason."
Frannyjean, your mother may be ruminating on past relationships and expressing herself verbally. (I have to admit I do this rather a lot. Gulp!) As long as she isn't working herself up into a tizzy about it, and getting stressed or depressed, I should turn a deaf ear. Or even use it as an entry to talking things through with her that seem to be on her mind, perhaps.
I came home one night and my Mom had left several messages calling me from the nursing home. I asked her what it was about and she said she had had a dream and wanted to know if it was true. Her last remaining sibling had visited Mom in her dream to tell Mom she had died but assured Mom she was fine.
That was on a Thursday. I received a notification in the mail the following Wednesday letting me know my Aunt (mom's sister) had passed away that previous Thursday, the night my Mom had that dream. So, hey there may be something to all that. I am a strong believer in God and the afterlife. So not to freak anyone out but perhaps your loved ones are talking to someone. By the way, my Mom passed away 5 mths. later. Tomorrow is the two year anniversary.
When my father was on his deathbed, I witnessed him shaking his head up and down as if he was in agreement with someone, like he was talking to someone, but that someone wasn't there. I just remember thinking this was so odd and a little scary, yet I was curious. A few hours later he expired. I like to think he was talking to someone who was helping him transition to the other side and that this someone was comforting to him during his last minutes on this planet.