My MIL wakes up in the middle of the night saying she hears someone or something banging on her bedroom wall.
Then she says she saw the front door is open by about 4 inches. So she calls me to make sure I am not outside.
I look outside, advise her it must have been deer running by or the cats were just running around the house playing... but everything is okay.
I sit with her while she drinks her soda and assist her back into bed.
This is happening more frequently...any suggestions?
Or perhaps spend a night on a mattress on the floor next to her. There may be actual noises. We have now had rats in the ceiling space twice in 20 years, including when we got back to Alice Springs 4 weeks ago. They made quite a lot of noise. Baits up through the ceiling hatch sorted it out in a couple of nights.
Possum can do the same in Australia, it’s like they’re having a noisy party. Possums are protected so you have to search for the gap in the eaves where they get in and block it off.
What she sometimes hears is a pounding sound on her walls. It is not an every night occurrence but does happen.
These sounds are very real to her. I try to alleviate her fear by telling her things are alright, that it is probably just an animal. (We live in the country, bears, deer, opposums, foxes, owls, eagles, cats, etc are common.) This helps her to relax and go back to sleep.
Im contacting her physician tomorrow. I am hoping he can assist in a positive way.
I just didn't realize this was a symptom of dementia or alzheimers.
From a previous post: "What bothers me the most about caregiving are cleaning up after animals and no time to care for me.
We live in the country, so the floor is hard to keep clean...so sweeping and mopping is an everyday MUST. But I end up mopping and picking dog poop all day long. I hate it when I go to do something and step in pet pee or poop.
We have pet pads, but it doesn't matter.
They just go where they want.
I dislike changing and washing all of mom's bedding frequently because the dogs had an "accident". (Fortunately, I have a waterproof mattress protector for her new mattress, otherwise it would be ruined already.) I also keep 2 thick mattress pads on her bed at all times.
I change the bedding once a week no matter what anyway, but getting up at 2:30 in the am to strip and make a bed because of animals, does get pretty hard.
So, I spend all the next day washing her oversized comforters, mattress pads, sheets, pillows, etc. -- If I get behind because I have to take her to the Dr., It takes days to get caught up.
I know her dogs mean a lot to her but
I just found a good paying work from home job. Training starts next month. There is set schedule though, which will be very hard to follow, while caring for mom... But I need to work...the cost of living has increased so much its necessary. -- I just won't have time to clean up after them anymore."
Are you still getting up in the middle of the night because of her dogs? How is training for your new job going?
Have you set any boundaries at all?
This post was about my MIL hearing things at night.
I do wish to make one point clear... I don't view my MIL as H's mother. Married 35+ years, she is OUR mother. I will care for her for her with all my heart.
If anything happened to H prior to her passing, I will continue to care for her.
We took this as a "one-off" - maybe a very realistic nightmare. As it turns out, this was the start of dementia manifesting itself via auditory and visual hallucinations. There were other similar events, (she convinced my father that people stole the registration out of his locked truck, she heard non-existent rats in the attic) then security would call me after they got reports. It was a downward spiral as time went on. My Dad passed away last November and Mom is now in a Memory Care Unit with fairly advanced dementia.
Maybe you can set up some video surveillance (at least outside) so YOU can know for sure that these things are not happening. The suggestion to install a white noise machine is also a good one.
Good luck and God bless.
There may be some actual noises, raccoons in the attic in my parents' case. You might hear what she is saying or when she is waking in the night. I don't know if this might apply, but I wonder if she wakes around the same time.? With young children night terrors would occur around the same time. It was helpful to wake them and let them go to sleep to disrupt the cycle.
Once we moved mom into assisted living and she started on dementia medications, anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds, she calmed down a bit. She still has a lot of paranoia...she'll say they are going to kick me out of here, someone held me down and cut my hair off, all of my money has been stolen, etc...
It's just part of the disease and I have become numb to it to a certain degree. Abruptly changing the subject and asking her a question can derail one of her rants.
Animals scratching their way in. People climbing in and out her windows. People having a party in her living room. People eating at her dining room table. People talking on her deck.
But she slept through our big dogs barking under her bedroom window at a coyote.
We’re rural and isolated, so it’s not as people even wander by. We only see humans when we go to town, lucky us.
She covered her windows with cardboard and trapped paper in her closed her deck door so, if the paper had fallen, she had her proof it had been opened. The paper never moved.
So many sleepless night as we patrolled the perimeter to calm her. So many days checking under the house and in the attic. Now she’s late mid-stage on the cusp of advanced and her delusions are focused more on her parents that are in the other room, just out of sight.
best of luck to you during this hard time.
Her level of dementia has progressed to moderate to severe, however the nocturnal hallucinations have ebbed for now.
AND she won't quit the caffeine... but I'm going to trying to blend it 1/2 and 1/2 in the afternoons to see if it helps.