Dear Dr. K,
Any ideas on how I can relieve my mother’s anxiety about her thinking an animal got in the house? I can’t find anything and have moved the couches but she is convinced and scared.
She’s always been a worrier, plus her thinking has been deteriorating and her vision is impaired a bit. I take care of her and my Dad both 94. She gets upset if I tell her I think she just thought she was seeing something and says I think she is crazy. Last night she woke me up shaking and practically in tears because she thought she saw it again -I offered for her to come sleep with me but she wouldn’t. Any suggestions? — C.S.
Thanks so much for sending in this question. This is a very common complaint I hear from family caregivers, so I am happy to share some thoughts about what might be going on and what you can do.
Now, I can’t say for sure what is going on with your mother. That’s because she’s not my patient, and I’m not in a position to interview her and examine her.
What I can say, however, is that it’s very common for older adults to develop persisting fears, worries, and complaints that often strike their family members as irrational, paranoid, absurd, or ridiculous.
Why is this?
Among my own patients, I’ve found this is often related to underlying cognitive impairment. Meaning, a problem with memory or thinking that hasn’t yet been fully diagnosed by doctors. In some cases, this kind of complaint ends up being one of the very earliest signs of clinical dementia.
Lewy-Body dementia, in particular, is associated with visual hallucinations. But any process causing brain deterioration (Alzheimer’s, vascular dementia, etc.) can result in anxieties spiraling out of control, or persisting strange beliefs.
That said, it’s quite possible for an aging person to express such fears and not have it be dementia. Maybe there really is an animal in the house, or a person stealing your parent’s things. It’s also possible for people to develop confusion or false beliefs due a problem other than dementia, such as mental illness or delirium.
(For more in-depth information on the most common causes of paranoia and strange beliefs in older adults, see this article:
6 Causes of Paranoia in Aging & What to Do.)
Still, given your mom’s age and the fact you’ve noticed other signs of “thinking deterioration,” there’s a good chance that her persisting fear could be related to some chronic underlying cognitive impairment.
4 Things to try to help your mother
I can’t tell you what you should do, but here are some ideas that are generally helpful for this type of situation:
1. Evaluate her underlying cognitive condition. In other words, get her evaluated for possible underlying dementia. Alzheimer’s and other dementias are not curable, but if that’s what’s going on, getting a diagnosis sooner rather than later can help you. For instance, if she gets this diagnosis then you’ll know to look for relevant caregiver resources, including resources on communication in dementia.
For more on what can cause cognitive problems in older adults, see “Cognitive Impairment in Aging: 10 Common Causes & 10 Things the Doctor Should Check.”
There are also a number of things you can do to help her thinking be the best it can be, such as avoiding certain medications, minimizing stress, and promptly recognizing delirium.
Last but not least, if she is diagnosed with dementia, your family should address advance care planning, and prepare for further cognitive decline. (This is sad to think about, but important!)
2. Reason why, rather than reasoning with. Instead of trying to convince her that nothing is there, see if you can figure out what might be triggering her perception that an animal is in the house. Is there a flapping curtain or other object that she’s misinterpreting, given her vision problems? Would better lighting in the house at night help?
3. Prioritize reassurance, validation, and emotional connection over rational explanations. No matter what their age or mental condition, people respond to feeling heard and loved.
And once the brain starts changing, it’s even less likely that a logical explanation will relieve a person’s anxiety. So, try focusing on acknowledging her concern and helping her feel better. It does sound like you’re already trying to do this, but since it’s such an important point, I’m saying it anyway!
Interestingly, research indicates that even people with poor memories maintain a lasting impression of an emotional experience. So keep fostering those positive emotions however you can. You might find that a hug and song work better than moving all the couches, and having your mother worry that you think she’s crazy.
4. Consider getting ideas from others caring for elderly relatives. Other family caregivers are often an excellent source of advice for trouble-shooting common problems such as anxiety, or even delusions.
You can start getting ideas — and support — from other caregivers right away through an online forum, such as the one at AgingCare.com. I would recommend doing this while her cognitive evaluation is pending, as you and she need practical behavior solutions sooner rather than later.
(Need more guidance on how to implement the suggestions above? I do offer a course to help families with all of this: Helping Older Parents with Early Memory Loss.)
Whom to ask for help
Of course, I always recommend families bring up their concerns with their relative’s doctors. Most concerns families have about an aging parent do track back to underlying medical problems that should be identified and addressed.
That said, many primary care doctors don’t have the time or experience to provide the optimal evaluation and support. If her doctor doesn’t seem very helpful, consider a specialty consultation with a neurologist, memory center, or geriatrician. (See this post for ideas on how to find a geriatrics consultation.) This should enable you to get a better understanding of what brain and body problems might be affecting your mother’s behavior.
For managing day-to-day challenges, you can get excellent practical advice from geriatric care managers, but this usually requires paying out of pocket.
I hope some of this advice helps. This is a tough situation to deal with, but if you’re persistent about investigating and looking into other ways to respond, you’ll hopefully hit upon an approach that brings your family some relief.
If nothing else, finding out that other people are dealing with similar problems is often a big relief to people.
You might also find my free online training for families helpful (see below), in which I teach families how to better communicate with an aging parent who may have memory loss.
[This article was last updated in June 2023.]
Sevilla says
I have a a situation or trying to figure out how to deal with my husband’s mother has always been a little spacey in ways that aren’t normal you can go right up behind her in a 1995 F-250 diesel and she won’t hear it we honk she doesn’t hear it and we bump her gently to kind of get her out of her little world we yell at her we do whatever we can then she still in her space doubt Little World deal constantly doing is always done it. has no idea where she was in her son’s entire childhood. And she’s been acting more suspicious as of lately when somebody is stealing money she doesn’t want to do anything about it like go to the police or ported or nothing she takes forever to do anything until it’s way too late or she can’t do anything and then she complains that nothing got done and blames us for it and she refuses to do anything on the issue she’s having always wants her son to do it she never goes to a doctor to get checked she refuses it I have to call the hospital or 911 when she gets really sick due to the fact that she refuses to get scene I’ve had to do it three times now.. and because of the fact that the way her husband and her raised their son he never got a proper education they stopped his education at age 12 because they said he was going to die at age 13 so I mean there the data is suffering from dementia and he slowly declining and now she is swearing that she’s going to take all the money that she saved up and put away and what not and just moved to New York as soon as he dies knowing that with everything that she has done she made sure her son who is also disabled due to a broken back cannot support his family she is now starting to act more verbally violently she always trying to start some kind of violent argument in some way she’s always saying kill me somebody your or trying to get my husband so angry which is her son get so angry to where he wants to hit her but he doesn’t so cuz he doesn’t let her push him that far there are times he almost did but I got him to realize she’s doing this on purpose she just wants everyone to pity her she puts the blame on everyone else but herself and it’s getting worse as of March 6 2020.. I don’t know what to do… how she expects us to do everything for her call to have her home fix that she lets us live in her husband had gotten a VA loan to get two houses on one property we live in the big house cuz we have two kids they’re that pretty much landlords and she refuses to pay to have things fixed unless it starts to just fall apart and then she expects us to find all of the things but do not want certain people coming to her home to do it and expects us to have it done now she’s telling us to sell our vehicles to pay for the fixing up at the house which we can’t really do cuz we need to get a smaller vehicle that can lug all four of us around.. and we’re at our wits end on what to do with her we help with we tell her we’re here to help her whenever she needs it but she refuses it and then eyes are helping her and then says she has no help from anyone when she does and when we beg her to let us help her she says no I’ll do it myself and then when it doesn’t work she complains that nobody tries to help her when we do and then she denies that we’ve ever done anything we’re getting to the point to know where we might have to video record everything she says and does cuz it’s getting to that point to where now my daughter is afraid to go over there and spend the weekends over there with her because she’s her moods are irrational and moment-to-moment incoherent and sometimes she won’t even cook dinner because because she just doesn’t want to not because of Any physical issues she just doesn’t want to make dinner so when she decides not to make dinner no one informs us just a couple of weekends ago or not weekends ago just last weekend my bad our daughter told us grandma didn’t make no dinner and I’m really hungry mommy and I said why didn’t Grandma tell me that she wasn’t so I could feed you cuz we could have brought some stuff over I had made enough food for about 8:10 people I always do cuz I’m always helping them out as well trying to and she says that well I didn’t want to bug you and I said it’s not bugging my kid needs to eat so our daughter called us at 12 saying she was really hungry and grandma didn’t make any food whatsoever so and then the grandma didn’t want to talk about it we got very angry and got very angry with us because we ask her what the hell why didn’t you feed our daughter she was staying at your house for the night what the hell if you couldn’t handle it why didn’t you just call us and tell us and she said I don’t know why I got a headache and blames it on nothing she’s had a terminal headache for the daily the day her son was born which has been over 40 years. And she complains about it daily but refuses to get any medical treatment Emma fuses to go see any doctors when she’s even sick unless she is so dehydrated so incoherent and so sick I have to call nine-one-one which we’ve done several times as I stated earlier the thing is is that she is getting worse and we don’t know what else to do we don’t know what legal actions we can take because now she’s becoming not only a danger to herself but they’re her husband because she will not listen to reason we have no issues with his mother we’re more concerned and worried about her than anything because whatever befalls her will it affect us dramatically we haven’t done anything to deserve this.
Nicole Didyk, MD says
Hi Sevilla. I didn’t follow all of the details in your comment but that sounds like a very frustrating situation. Check out Dr. K’s article about paranoia, and also consider downloading her tools for how to get a dementia assessment more quickly and easily. Good luck!
Sri says
Hi, my dad is 55 years now and he is always worried about his lost career and we had some debits so he will always worried about all these things. From past two days his throat suddenly infected he was unable to speak, he speak one word and he can’t tell the next word but he doesn’t have cold I am sure. So i was totally scared please help me . . What may be the reason for this problem
Nicole Didyk, MD says
That does sound frightening , but I can’t give you any medical advice. This website is a place to learn more about aging and health, not a resource for sudden medical issues.
In terms of his chronic worries, if you think that he is becoming overly paranoid, this article may be helpful.
Kaye says
My Mom who’s 85 told me that she dropped a grape drink on the floor and when she went to clean it up the grape drink was gone. I told her I didn’t believe this happened. She got very aggravated at me because I didn’t believe her. She’s also having trouble with names family member names she can’t remember them, she does recognize faces but not names. She wants to remain living by herself and driving only to the grocery store and bank. She won’t hear of my sisters and I taking her car away, please any suggestions will be helpful.
Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH says
Sorry to hear of your situation. I don’t know that I have anything to suggest beyond what I share in the article. If she’s having memory problems, she should be evaluated for this, so that she and your family can better understand what might be going on. Try to not argue with her and reduce your expectations of her being “reasonable”.
The related article on paranoia has additional suggestions on navigating this kind of situation. good luck!
Stephen says
I have a similar situation. I moved in with my 84 year old mother to take care of her after my father died. She has always been a very doubtful person but over the last 2 years she has become more and more paranoid. She has a very hard time trusting anybody now and often openly expresses it. When I ask her why she feels this way she angrily denies it and accuses me of being crazy. Her family has a history of Alzheimer’s disease with both her mother and her sister suffering from it before they passed away. It is very frustrating. I have tried for years to prove she can trust me but she doesn’t seem to notice. I am not sure what to do.
Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH says
Sorry to hear of your situation; it’s not uncommon and it is indeed very stressful. I would give up on trying to “prove” anything to her, as this approach never works and tends to make the older person dig in more on their beliefs. What tends to be more helpful is supportive listening and connection. You don’t have to agree with all the crazy things she does; focus more on avoiding direct conflicts or arguments about it. You may want to have her medically evaluated, especially if you see other signs indicating problems with her memory or thinking. I would also recommend joining a support group if you can, as it can be very hard to live with a paranoid older person. good luck!
Joan says
My almost 87 yr old mother is causing us concern. She and my 93 yr old father were in assisted living, where he ended up having a stroke.
He is now in a rehab center at the same facility where my mom continues to live in assisted living. For sevearl months now she keeps talking about not knowing where the baby is. She says he was right here with his balnket but they took him somewhere and she can’t find him. We assumed she was referring to my dad, but she was doing this before he had the stroke and moved to another wing.
The baby is “Anthony” which is the name of my dad and one of my brothers. We have explained that there are only 2 Anthony’s but she says, “no, I know that dad is Anthony and and that the other Anthony is grown and lives in TN, (which is true), but I’m talking about little Anthony”.
She even called my aunt to ask her who is taking care of the babay because when she does, he always cries.
She doesn’t really have confusion on anything else, only this one thing. Sure, she forgets to take care of things sometimes, but this is different. It’s always about little Anthony, as if her brain is taking her back in time, although while she is talking about it, she seems to know she is in the present day. This happens about twice a week on avaerage and seems to happen more if she has something stressful going on.
Is this true dementia?
Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH says
Hm…it’s not that uncommon for an older adult to develop an odd belief or moments of confusion. If that’s the only thing that’s off about her memory and thinking, it can initially be a little tricky to figure out what’s going on, and whether it’s the very earliest symptom of something that will eventually be diagnosed as dementia. You might want to request an assessment as described here: Cognitive Impairment in Aging: 10 Common Causes & 10 Things the Doctor Should Check. This article covers the many medical issues that can make an older person’s thinking worse. Good luck!
Pati D'Amico says
My brother and I had to finally make a decision to place Mom in a nursing home 3 months ago.She’s had 5 breaks (one requiring 5 hour surgery) …Last year she fractured her back due to Osteoporosis and trying to do too much…always a doer. 2 years ago I noticed something(at first subtle) going on with her memory . But memory issues worsened and she was diagnosed with dementia.Sadly certain meds can increase the chance of having dementia which I believe happened here.It is so sad because one minute she’s still Mom(still cares for herself physically) then the next she’s angry, paranoid and delusional.
Now she’s starting to put things we say into bizarre stories. I just try to tell myself it is the disease yelling at me and not my Mom.
I must say the place Mom is living in is pretty,clean and the staff are caring and kind…Mom refused any help to keep her at home and we couldn’t in good conscious keep her there alone…I was afraid she would fall or be taken advantage of. No matter-children will always feel a sense of guilt but we realized we couldn’t keep her with us because she no longer understand logical reasoning and would probably end up in the hospital within a month. Take deep breathes, cry alone-it helps and talk to others experiencing the same. PS Learn about putting your parents on MEdicaid and get Power of Attorney .
You have to protect your parents and yourselves.
Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH says
Thanks for sharing your story and this excellent advice.
Roxanne says
While having a 3 way video call with my 79 year old mother and my brother, my mother became disoriented and thought I was seatting at her house. She started calling out my name and telling my brother that I was seating in from of her but had disappear (my mother and I live in the same town). During this time I kept saying… MUM I’M HERE ON THE VIDEO CALL but it was like she couldn’t see me because she had her eyes around her living room. About a minute later or so, she realized I was on the video call and not at her house.
After we finished the video call my mother called me on the phone and she said that she got confused thinking that I was actually seating in front of her and that she felt when everything came back to normal and realized that I was part of the video call.
should I be concerned about what she experienced?
Thank you so much!
Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH says
Well, in general, if you notice a concerning incident, a reasonable next step is to see whether other concerning things have happened or are happening. If you do notice other signs that might be worrisome, then it might make sense to consider further evaluation. I describe what would be involved here:
Cognitive Impairment in Aging: 10 Common Causes & 10 Things the Doctor Should Check. Good luck!
Tim says
Hi Leslie,
My 74yo Mom has always been sedentary, but she was diagnosed about 4 years ago with partially-functioning pancreas. She gets regular treatment and checkups for that, but she is obsessed with her health. She visits doctors at least twice a week. She is convinced she is going to get cancer and is terrified of dying. No reassurance from any of the scans, MRIs, ultrasounds or doctors visits can comfort her. She is upbeat the day of talking to a doctor, but then the debilitating worry creeps back in. She focuses on nothing else and is really becoming a zombie to the television. Her quality of life is really sad.
She is healthy enough physically to be active; she chooses not to. My father is old-fashioned and thinks she is choosing this. He is at his wits’ end with her and his quality of life is suffering as a result. She is already on anti-anxiety medications, but they seems to have little effect. My sister and I are on the cusp of having an “intervention” with her because of her manic worry over her health. Do you know where we can turn?
Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH says
Sorry to hear of your mother’s worries. It sounds like you are concerned and frustrated by what you see as the choices she’s making regarding her health (and maybe also her worrying).
I would recommend listening to this recent podcast episode with Barbara Kane, who specializes in helping adult children and aging parents:
087- Interview: Coping with Difficult Older Parents.
She has some good advice on how it’s often necessary to accept a parent’s feelings or choices, even when we don’t like them. There is also advice (if not in the podcast, then in the book) on how to know when it’s more urgent to attempt to “intervene.” (And even then, what you can achieve with an intervention is often limited.)
Good luck!
Sara says
My 65 year old mother says one thing and completely denies saying it. She’s so stubborn and swears she didn’t say certain things. It drives me crazy because I actually believed her when she’s says I must be the one forgetting or misheard her. I started to question my insanity and my memory. Until my dad witnessed how she says things and denies she said it. She gets extremely upset when we tell her about her doing that and thinks my dad and I are making it up to make her look bad. Should I be concerned?
Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH says
If this is new behavior or getting worse, then yes, I would say this sounds like cause for concern. It sounds like either she’s forgetting things or perhaps she believes things that aren’t true. Either warrants further medical evaluation. I have more on potential causes and what to do here:
Cognitive Impairment in Aging: 10 Common Causes & 10 Things the Doctor Should Check
Kerry says
My mom is 75 years old. The past year She has been getting upset with my dad for Little things that don’t seem to make sense. They sit and watch TV and he plays games on his Ipad. He doesn’t hear well. She gets upset that he plays his games and ignores her when she tries to talk to him. She ends up not talking to him for days. He tries to talk to her and then won’t speak. She won’t Listen to anything or suggestions from me. She is stubborn and thinks it is all my dad. I don’t know what is going on with her. I know she hates technology and refuses to use or learn anything new. I think she gets mad that my dad does have an interest in this stuff. Her behavior is just so odd and is happening all the time that I’m wondering if there Is something going on with her. And/or how do I approach her. Any help or suggestions would be so much appreciated.
Thank-you,
Kerry
Leslie Kernisan, MD MPH says
Are you subscribed to our email list? I will soon be announcing a free webinar that will cover how to approach this kind of situation, including how to know if something “more” is going on with your older parent. I created this webinar because I get asked about situations like yours quite a lot, and I want to share more advice than is possible within a single comment response.
I do think you’re on the right track to be asking yourself these questions!