Val brought up the notion of confabulation. I really hadn't read it in any other AZ site or book - and it's a big part of our life right now because my husband has decided that he has to go to Pasadena, California. We live on the East Coast. He has a bad leg and can't fly comfortably; he wants to take the train. He wants to go there because that's where he got his doctorate in mathematics in I think 1946. And they have, according to him, invited him to come out and give a lecture when there's a class reunion. Does he have the letter? No. Does he know when it is? No. Is this at all likely? No. He has a room piled full of "articles" he's written - mostly copied verbatim from math books. A few years ago I asked a friend who was a mathematician to read over his work, and he said it was basically nothing that made any sense. I've just left everything alone in his "study" - I'm not allowed (by him) to touch anything and I figure it's best to just let it go as long as he's in the house and then clean and dump everything at once!
He keeps asking me to take him to AAA to make a train reservation! I keep dodging the issue - you find the date and we can go... It's funny, it's not upsetting... but this is so different from what I have encountered over the years. Not hallucination, but confabulation!
Welcome to the club. He believes what he is saying and there is nothing you can do to persuade him otherwise. All you can do is hope he forgets what he wants to do.
My DH told stories with such conviction and detail that he actually had a lawyer-niece ready to so some legal research for him. I had to tell her it was all made-up. I don't thinkit was easy for her to believe me. I called our accountant and regular atty to tell them about this and don't take it as fact if he calls to tell you about it. Eventually, yes, he stopped and went on to other things, but it's astonishing the mischief these stories can create for the rest of us.
My husband once spent hours on the phone trying to find someone who would agree with him that it was 11pm. It was 4pm and the sun was shining. At least it kept him out of my hair for a while. It seems funny now-It sure wasn't then.
I had the same question and did a quick look-see. There are distinctions between the two. As far as I could tell (all the psycho-babble is very hard to understand) delusions are more "in the present", and usually involve feelings of persecution -- someone is stealing their things, a spouse is having an affair, that sort of thing. Confabulation is more in the past, as Val describes, making up memories. It is apparently associated with ADLOs having gaps in their memories, and so they invent elaborate explanations to account for the missing pieces. However, it isn't fibbing, as there is no intent to deceive and the ADLO believes what they are saying.
Delusions are usually something that occurs at the moment, ideas that get into their heads and all but impossible to get out. They become suspicious, accuse others of stealing, spying, poisoning their food. They may accuse you of not being you, say you're an imposter and this is not their house. The more you try to explain, the more they call you a liar. My DH put us thru this, too. He'd accuse me of being unfaithful and I'd say, 'but I'm right here standing in front of you' and he'd shout back 'oh, no you're not!' Makes you want to put your head in the oven.
Hallucinations are, again, something different and we did those, too. They are things an individual will see, hear, smell, taste or feel through their senses and are absolutely real to them. They can be frightening or not. I often talked to people only my DH could see and told them to get out of the house, whatever, and they usually did. Don't ask for logical explanations for any of this, the brain cells are all misfiring and there's nothing you can do to chanage their perceptions. You can assure them you are always going to be there, won't let anything hurt them, etc. if they are frightened.
It doesn't really matter what all this stuff is labeled--you have to deal with it as best you can or just head for the oven.
I would think a delusion to be thinking the sun is blue, when it is not and everyone knows it's not. Confabulation, on the other hand, is describing events that have never happened. Or describing discussions that have never ocurred. That's been my experience. (As it relates to confabulation.) What was that movie where the professor thought he was working for the govenment? He was a mathematician. It was a great movie, and sometimes I can relate to how the wife must have felt, even though my situation is entirely different. But that was not AD. It was something psychiatric. It's still the twilight zone.
Briegull, has your husband been diagnosed with AD?
Yes, he's mid-stage. No "executive functioning", mostly incontinent, sometimes doesn't recognize me, some sundowning, needs help dressing and undressing, has no sense of time -- the works. The neurologist says it's the ones who were the smartest who end up losing the most.
The play was Proof. I saw it on Broadway in 2000, with Mary Lou Parker, and it was also a movie which I didn't see. I felt like it was my life in front of me. Here's the synopsis from IMDB: ------- The daughter of a brilliant but mentally disturbed mathematician, recently deceased, tries to come to grips with her possible inheritance: his insanity. Complicating matters are one of her father's ex-students who wants to search through his papers and her estranged sister who shows up to help settle his affairs. ------- http://www.maa.org/features/102705proofreview.html
is a lengthy discussion from the Mathematical Association of America.
I saw it not long after it opened on Broadway in 2000. Even at that point it seemed that what my husband was working on didn't make much sense, but I had always tried to keep away from his intellectual pursuits, so as not to challenge him on that. But as I said, I asked a respected mathematician friend to look at his papers and they just were gibberish, according to him. I lied and said I'd never heard back from that friend.
It's amazing how long strange behaviors were going on with him and I just thought it was him being the absent-minded professor he had always been. And maybe he was!
Maybe it's precisely delusion, not confabulation, although he has come up with this lengthy back-story as to why he wants to go to Pasadena. Actually, maybe come fall we might go. He still has siblings out there. If I could only get someone at Caltech to invite him to give a lecture...
No, that's not the movie I meant. It's been so long since I've seen it, can't remember the actors. (Yes, sometimes WE can't remember something.)
After I discovered confabulation, I no longer tried to argue with my husband about how crazy it all sounded. In fact a week ago, the discussion that prompted my call to the ALZ. hot line, I sat him down & told him he had made the discussion up. He said he was sorry (pitiful) that he didn't mean to lie to me. I told him I knew that. He said it was unintentional if he got things mixed up. (I believe that.) He didn't go on the defensive as usual, but I think because I was so calm, he knew something serious was going on.
That's a heck of a long train ride for something imaginary with incontinence & a bad leg. Doesn't sound like a plan to me. Maybe the siblings could fly to the east coast?
The siblings are both in their eighties. But our son lives in S.F. - he's coming here to baby-sit for the first week of July so I can go out to the island we've been going to for 30 years.. I have some commitments there and I figure sonny-boy can learn what's going on better that way than any other.
Maybe you're thinking of A Beautiful Mind, which is actually much more hopeful. The guy it was about is (STILL is) real and now sane, and he was a seriously good mathematician. Most mathematicians don't produce a great deal of original research after they're 30 or so... so he's not now.
Thank you! Thank you!! Thank you!!! Now I understand why he tells these wild stories. I couldn't believe what he was telling a friend the other day -- that DH's father was asked to go into WWI but was involved in the clothing business so he couldn't. Folks, really now -- his father was 10 YO when WWI was going on and never had anything to do with the clothing business in his entire life. This is not the first time he has told such wild tales, I just wipe them out of my mind and chalk it up to AD.
Also my DH talks to himself all the time but when I ask him what he is saying, he can't remember and tells me so.
Does anybody but us know how bizarre this disease is. I feel like Alice in Wonderland. Reality is gone. I don't want to be pulled into their distorted world. By agreeing with them do we lose a part of our own sanilly.
i hadnt heard of the confabulation either. mine also did it quite regularly, making up things and telling others with such gusto!:) if i hadnt know it wasnt real i would have believed it too. mine was contantly trying to get outside to the street so he could 'hitchhike' out to the midwest back to work on the pipelines..awww...he did do it when he was 17 with his dad for several summers. it was all i could do to keep him from climbing into the first car he could stop! once he got out and walked over a mile from home trying to 'get back there'= boy did i have a time getting him into the car, i had to promise to drive him there 'later;'..the mind is a wonderous thing, and shows its true capabilities when mental illness is involved. it can be quite frightening too when they look you in the eye and believe what they say...divvi
divvi-my husband was found by the police hitchhiking to Iran to see the hanging of Saddat (a long way from Florida). He became very violant when comfronted by the police and was taken to a psych facility. From that point it got only worse. Should we write a book-fiction of course as no one would believe us.
Yes! A beautiful Mind. Yes it was based on a true story. Great movie. If you haven't seen it, rent it.
This is great. This is what I was asking for when I 1st started. Input about confabulation. I tried a new discussion with "creating memories" which should have been "inventing memories." I just didn't believe I could be the only one experiencing this, and now I find I'm not. I think the "experts" are not up to speed on this. I had to find a remote study out of the U.K. that said confabulation could be found in the early stage of AD. However, now that I've read all, not sure my husband is in the "early stage" anymore. Like all said, you adjust to the new normal.
C O N F A B U L A T I O N. It is enough to make any caretaker go nuts. That's why I was so upset when I put the call into the Alz. hot line. The Clinical Social Worker had never heard of it. I have 6 years experience in medical social work, and my specialty is not AD.
Stehtford, My husband started talking to himself a couple of years ago. I'd come home & think he was on the phone. I could hear him making points with someone & then counter points. I asked who he was talking to & he'd just get angry. "You're not on the phone." Blow up. The conversations were lively.
The first description ('writing articles' about mathematics") reminded me of "A Beautiful Mind" also.
After reading everyone's comments, I began to curious about whether there is much research. This abstract below looked like something interesting and maybe even useful. If they are correct, it might be a way to distinguish FTD from Alzheimer's?
Eur J Neurol. 2004 Nov;11(11):728-33. Confabulation, but not executive dysfunction, discriminates AD from frontotemporal dementia. Nedjam Z, Devouche E, Dalla Barba G. PMID: 15525293
The confabulation with DH consisted of real people, real places, real events, but totally mixed up as to time and place. He definitely would not be able to make a timeline of events in his life.
lol my LO asked me one night after we went to bed if I was staying the night,when I replied I had been for the last 20+ years she told me I'd have to leave as her husband would be home soon an he was a very good marksman,has also asked me how many children I had,I told her 9 an she then asked how many boys an how many girls I said half an half,didn't dawn on her, I guess in her world you can cut them in half
I found that the confabulation was a daily occurrence in the early stage; now that DH is in the middle stage, it doesn't seem to happen as much. However, in this stage his verbal skills declined, so he just may not be able to convey that it still happens.
I'm not sure what stage my DH is at..seems like things overlap or mix in the different stages. His neurologist has never mentioned what stage she thought he might be so we just plug along with life. His dreams are very, very real and sometimes he is very upset by them. Sometimes I can reassure him, sometimes we can "look" at it in a different way and get a laugh. That is always good when he laughs!
Wish I had had a recorder on today. First confabulation by DH. He asked if he had ever told me how he bought "this building" (our house); I said no and he started. It was a wonderful story - bits and pieces of truth, but mostly not. Then he did the same thing about "his" car. When he finished, I told him I was happy he told me things I never knew. He said, "well, that's what I'm here for."!
Good on Vickie. My dh can tell these stories sometimes too...and they go on and on and only bits and pieces are real....I know this for a fact because I was there. But, he has to stop often to gather up his thoughts of how he is going to continue with this story which is mostly confabulation.
After reading all these interesting stories about confabulation, delusions, and bizarre behavior of our loved ones, I feel that I must contribute a little story. About ten years ago (several years befor My Helen was diagnosed With vascular dementia) My doctor sent me to see a specialist and my Dear Helen insisted on going with me. We waited about ten minutes for him in his office and when he came in he introduced himself and shook both of our hands. He happened to be a rather small oriental man and the first words that came out of Helen's mouth was "are you sure you're a doctor?... you look like a little kid"..... Naturly I was embabarassed, but as it turned out, it was no big deal to Dr. Woo. He just smiled and said "I am a little kid, a thirty-two year old little kid". Of course that is just a sample of early dementia, but why do I remember it word for word after ten years?.....
I took DH to the Museum of Military History (a small but excellent local museum) yesterday. He proceeded to tell the volunteer that he was a Viet Nam vet. Yes, he was in the Army but never in Nam and never in combat. I didn't contradict him, but it was embarrassing.
He spins lots of Tall Tales and it's good to have a word for it - confabulation. Better than thinking of him as a liar.
Wow! Blast from the past. Four years ago, three and a half before he died, when I started that thread. The study is emptied, the doctoral "hood" found and safely packed away with other mementos, the letters of commendation etc, the bookcases cleaned out, and in two weeks I'll leave this house forever. How long ago those stories seem!
But one does survive, and I'm preparing to move on, to the west coast and new adventures.
briegull....good luck to you on your "new life"....may you have a wonderful time on the west coast and enjoy yourself to the fullest. I have always enjoyed this thread that you started several years ago.
Golly, I remember too! Thank you so much Briegull. One of the many difficult things at first was listening to DH tell things that were absolutely not true. I couldn't understand it. In fact, until I found Joan and this place, very little made sense. Best wishes to you as you roar off to the West Coast.. Its beautiful out there!!
Reminds me of the time Jean and I were visiting a good friend in her condo. Jean sat there and told how he helped build it. We had never even been in the same town when it was built. She knew and I knew that it wasn't true but we didn't say anything.