What are False Beliefs and Delusions?
Delusions are firmly held false beliefs typical for a person with dementia. A person experiencing a delusion might feel that they are being watched or someone is after them, leading to jumping to conclusions without much evidence.
A person with dementia might be unable to connect bits of information and memories correctly, leading to incorrect conclusions and believing in something that is not true.
Hallucinations and delusions are imaginary, but they seem very real to the person experiencing them. Also, hallucinations can make a person with Alzheimer’s,scared, stressed or anxious.
Delusions are most common in Lewy bodies type of dementia, but they can affect people with Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia as well, especially in older adults and later stages. False beliefs and delusions are less common in people with frontotemporal dementia.
Causes of False Beliefs and Delusions
The changes to the brain affected by dementia cause people to have difficulty recognising places, people, and things. For example, people with dementia may not recognise a family member or a friend and believe someone is trying to enter their home.
Dementia affects people’s memory. People may believe they put something in one place and then believe it was stolen, leading to suspicion, false beliefs and hallucinations. This is understandable, considering that a person with dementia might:
- Have no memory of the most recent events
- Can forget explanations
- Doesn’t understand conversations
- Believes things disappear from their surroundings
- Can’t make sense of their environment
Some of the causes that can lead to false beliefs, hallucinations and delusions include:
- Poor eyesight
- Poor hearing
- Medication side-effects
- Confusion after forgetting to use glasses or a hearing aid
- Psychiatric illness
- Unfamiliar environment
- Low light in a room
- Physical conditions like fever, infection
- A change in daily routine
- Sensory overload
- New or unfamiliar caregivers
Delirium
Delirium is an acute or sudden confusion whereby a person’s mental ability gets strongly affected. It can develop within a few hours or days, and the symptoms can alter throughout the day.
Delirium suddenly changes a person’s mental state, making that person feel more confused than usual or sleepy and drowsy.
Delirium makes it hard for people with dementia, for example, to pay attention or to focus. This means that a person might be unable to think clearly or answer directly to questions. A person with delirium will have difficulty understanding their surroundings and sometimes even experience hallucinations or paranoia.
Other signs of delirium might include the following:
- Trouble remembering recent events
- Trouble with orientation
- Confusing the time of day
- Incoherent speech
- Difficulties with perception
- Restlessness, irritability, and agitation
It’s important to know the difference between dementia and delirium. They might be hard to differentiate, especially if a person has both. People with dementia have a gradual decline in memory due to the loss of brain cells, which can lead to a delirious state.
Equally, although delirium does occur in people with dementia, an episode of delirium doesn’t always suggest that a person has dementia.
Signs of False Beliefs and Delusions
False beliefs and delusions feel real to people with dementia. They might become upset when explaining what they see and experience, so it is essential to remain calm, have a reassuring voice and listen to what they say.
It’s also important to remember that sometimes, the claims that people with dementia make might be valid, and someone might be stealing from them or taking advantage of their vulnerability.
Signs of delusion and false beliefs in people with dementia include:
- Claiming that someone is stealing from them
- Claiming that someone is trying to harm them
- Hiding items to keep them safe
- Calling the police frequently
- Refusing to answer the phone or the door
- Whispering while talking so no one can hear them
- Confusing people’s identities
- Thinking they are in a different place
- Reliving past events
- Having suspicions about someone
Confabulations
No one’s memory is 100% accurate, but some people might make more memory errors than others. Confabulation is the unintentional creation of false facts and memories. It is not the same as having delusions and lying.
Some even go as far as calling confabulation “honest lying” because people, for example, with Alzheimer’s disease, genuinely believe what they are saying.
Frequently, a person with Alzheimer’s disease might tell a story about their childhood that never happened. Still, it’s also possible that they remember something that did happen but differently.
As memory is affected by confabulation, people that have a particular mental health issue don’t have the intention to deceive or lie. They just feel confident in their memories.
Confabulations usually involve people misremembering their own life experiences and can sometimes place these experiences in the wrong place or time. They might wrongly recall details and draw facts from other conversations, movies, and TV.
What Triggers Confabulations
A variety of factors can result in confabulation. Some of them include mental health disorders, injuries, and memory disorders. There isn’t a specific cause identified so far. It is known that a person who experiences confabulation usually has damage in the frontal lobes and the corpus callosum areas of the brain. The frontal lobe has a massive role in a person’s memory.
Some of the conditions that can trigger confabulation include:
- The belief that an imposter has replaced a loved one
- Dementia
- Alzheimer’s disease
- Korsakoff syndrome
- Brain related injuries
How to Get Help with UCS?
Delusions and false beliefs can be one of the most challenging symptoms of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. However, the team at Unique Community Services is prepared to find suitable methods and create individualised care plans for your loved ones.
Caring for people with delusions in dementia requires showing the utmost respect, dignity, patience, and empathy, which is what our support workers are trained, and strive to do. If you want to find a support worker that suits your needs, don’t hesitate to contact us via our phone number or go to our website and get more information.
