What to look for?
Delusions and Paranoia | Common Signs- Believes that others are stealing money or other belongings
- Believes that uninvited people have been in their home (or are on their way)
- Believes that people who are on TV are actually in the room
- Believes that deceased family members are actually still alive
- believes that they live somewhere else (e.g. asks to go "home")
- Thinks inanimate objects (like dolls or figurines) are real
- Speaks of news events as if they have a direct effect on him/her (e.g. when the convenience store was robbed at knifepoint, they believe that they were the one who was robbed at knifepoint)
- Believes that his/her spouse is being unfaithful
- Becomes jealous when attention is directed towards others
- Is suspicious of the motives of others
- Believes others are being untruthful
Delusions and Paranoia | General Description
The memory Memory
The ability to process information that requires attention, storage, and retrieval. impairments that accompany Alzheimer's disease Alzheimer's disease
A neurological disease that affects memory and behaviour. It is characterized by beta-amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary tangles in the brain. There is no known cause but genetics and lifestyle are thought to play a role. often lead to suspicion of others and beliefs in things that are untrue. The person you care for may be overly suspicious and distrustful of the actions and motives of relatives, friends and strangers. For example, if they cannot find an item, they may believe that it has been stolen by you or by someone else. The person you care for may also often believe that they are being threatened or that they are in danger. They may believe that a trip to the dentist for a check-up is really a plot to have them put away in a nursing home. Additionally, the person you care for may have a distorted sense of reality. Since Alzheimer's disease affects judgment, it may affect their ability to separate fact from fiction. They may believe that the people on television are actually in the room or that deceased family members are actually alive.
Some people with Frontotemporal dementia Frontotemporal dementia
A type of dementia that mainly affects the frontal lobe causing a problem in executive function tasks. may experience psychiatric manifestations, including depression Depression
A disorder where a person experiences a constant state of sadness and low mood which interferes with their daily activity. or mania, which can have persecutory delusions, such as thinking that people are "out to get you". It is not uncommon for an individual to first be diagnosed with mental illness (bipolar disorder, schizophrenia Schizophrenia
A mental illness in which the person suffers from distorted thinking, hallucinations, and a reduced ability to feel normal emotions., or depression) before it is determined that they have Frontotemporal dementia. While hallucinations are much more common than delusions in Lewy Body dementia, delusions occur often enough to be a supportive feature in the diagnostic criteria for dementia with Lewy bodies Lewy bodies
Round clumps of protein found in the brain's neurons in many people who experience a neurodegenerative disorder..
The first step in taking a more active role in symptom Symptom
In medicine a symptom is what the patient complains of. For example, a a patient may have symptoms of pain and fatigue. management is understanding how a symptom is affecting everyday life; the next step is communicating this knowledge to the care planning team and family members. SymptomGuideTM is designed with these goals in mind.
