My mother thinks she is being controlled by Cell Phones - Alzheimer's Disease & Dementia Message Board

lisasafox · 02-26-2009, 08:20 PM

Im at my wits end with my 70 year old mother, her paranoia has taken on a life of its own. It started in 2005 when she lived in a Senior apartment, then it escalated to her being followed by the neighborhood drug dealers, it got so bad for her one night she told me she ran around Santa Monica beach from sundown to sunrise and standing in a Hotel Lobby doorway for hours until she felt safe enough to go home. She started to lock up her cabinets and refrigerator and carry her bloodpressure meds around with her for fear someone was switching her medication. After several months of this she called me crying

Gabriel · 02-26-2009, 09:53 PM

Welcome to the board Lisa. Question, is your Mom still living alone? Are their any other behaviors she is exhibiting? Has she been diagnozed with dementia? She is definitely exhibiting extreme paranoia.

My father has vascular dementia and went through a period of extreme paranoia. He would repeatedly lock up the house and refused to let anybody open a window. He locked us out numerous times and even locked himself out a few times. He insisted on having his pistol. Knowing the danger I brought it home for hubby to "clean" and he removed the firing pin making it inoperable. Dad laid ambush for an intruder once. It was just the neighbor checking his mail. He left the house at night a few times to confront the intruders. Recently he has other wandering episodes that stemed from hallucinations. He had to check on the men that were handling the meat or check on the "boys". He actually left the building to met me at the court house. I was 3 hours away, there was no courthouse near where he was, and it was 19 degrees with him in a cotton shirt. He now wears a wander bracelet.

Yes, the paranoia is frustrating to you but it can be hazardous to your Mom. She can get herself into situations that are dangerous following her paranoia. If she is living alone it is past time to make other living arrangements for her. Her doctor needs to know what is going on with her paranoia. He can determine the cause and even prescribe medication that will lesson the paranoia. I would suggest a trip to the doctor's first and foremost to determine the cause and what can be done.

Love, deb

Martha H · 02-27-2009, 04:39 AM

This is a very scary situation for you. If your mother has been diagnosed with Dementia, this is something that sometimes happens in that disease, but rarely. My mother had the delusion that the landlord was renting the basement illegally to tenants. But it did not cause her any fear or irrational actions.

I would try to get a better diagnosis - is she perhaps suffering from another type of mental illness? Many of those can be controlled by drugs, whereas dementia just keeps on getting worse. Is she under the care of a competent doctor, whether a neurologist, psychiatrist or geriatric specialist? I worry about her extreme level of fear.

Is your Mom in an assisted living facility? In her confusion she should not be living alone, yet she seems far too young for the usual nursing home. Is her brain OK; was an MRI taken? Sometimes growths in the brain produce this kind of paranoia, or has she always struggled with mental illness? Somehow this seems too extreme to be just the usual Dementias of old age ...

Good luck!

Martha

PS - or, is it possible that she made up the whole 'night on the beach' story? Does she repeat herself, forget what she just said, lose things, forget how to use a check, forget to pay bills?

dorri · 02-28-2009, 05:03 PM

For the last couple of years prior to mom's diagnosis, mom had some irrational fears and would lock both doors, even the storm door until it came to her that if anything happened to her no one would be able to get to her. Then she went to the other extreme and left everything opened and even shovelled out a path incase the ambulance needed to get to her.

Gabriel · 02-28-2009, 08:47 PM

Dorri, I actually laugh because your description of all the locked doors flashed a funny memory through my mind. I arrived at Mom and Dad's, when they were still at home, rather early and they were still in bed. Even through I had a key all the storm doors were locked. I knocked and rang the door bell but both sleep without hearing aids. I even called the house phone from my cell phone. All the window's were locked. Dad had secured the fortress. So I went to Mom and Dad's bedroom window and banged and banged and banged until I thought I would break the window. Dad threw open the curtains with a shoe in his hand. I guess he was going to bang back at me. I saw him mouth something and then he went to the back door and fumbled with the locks forever before he got them open. He looked straight at me and said.... "Why didn't you use your key?" I had to laugh!!!

Love, deb