I’m going to pass your comment on to my father. My mother is suffering from dementia & talks CONSTANTLY about having conversations with her mother & father (now deceased). I usually just play along a little & then try to move to another subject - but my father gets upset about it & tells her that her parents are “gone to be with the LORD”. She usually starts crying and asks when did they die?
This happens several times a day - Daddy says he just gets tired of hearing it & says he won’t play along with her. He seems to be under the impression that she can be reasoned with.
I really hope he listens! You can’t imagine the difference this will make for all of you.
Yes, there probably is a part of him that doesn’t want to admit that her mind is gone.
And for those who have repetition as part of their problem, I’m sure that does get tedious. We didn’t have too much of that in any of our parents, but to the extent we did, we found that going along with something (acknowledging it) made it less likely the parent would keep repeating it.
One thing we also tried with the instances we did have of repetition was asking questions. We would give Mom the chance to talk about the point in more detail, pay more attention to it. I guess it was kind of like helping her know that we did hear her and she did get to “get it out of her system,” so to speak.
Sometimes the stories are like pent-up pressure on the brain. Once the person is able to get them out in a way that they feel they have been heard and affirmed, the need to say them or continue on with them goes away.
Of course, there is a sort of mind loss where the person just repeats no matter what. In that case, I’d say do whatever it takes to keep you, the listener, from getting stressed. “Yes, dear,” “uh-huh,” or maybe even something with a little humor that makes you chuckle — I used to say occasionally something like, “Well, you don’t say!” This isn’t making fun of the person, it is keeping you sane and engaging them where they are at.
P.S. When I reread your post, I realized I forgot to tell you how sorry I was about this all making your mother cry and your father upset.
So much involved in all that.
But I do think (from experience) they would BOTH be happier if she wasn’t constantly receiving the “new” information that her parents were dead and he wasn’t constantly feeling like he had to be the bearer of that bad news.