One thing that commonly happens in people with dementia is that they often think others are stealing their belongings. This might be true from time to time if they are living with other residents in memory care, but in many cases, it’s just paranoia. It’s all part of the further progression of their disease. So how do you look out for your PwD? How do you figure out what’s really happening with them? Sometimes, you just have to be a really good detective.
In my sister’s case, her paranoia got dialed up to eleven some time after I took away her cell phone. It was time. She was marginally able to use it still, but it had clearly become an object of stress for her. She couldn’t always figure out how everything on it worked, and she constantly misplaced it. So I gently made it disappear from her daily routine—I simply told Peggy that it was broken, and that we would, alas, need to take it to the Apple store for repairs. Would that be okay with her? It was. Then her iPhone came home with me and never returned.
She asked about it a couple of times, and each time I’d tell her it was still being fixed. And eventually she forgot all about it, to my relief and surprise, considering that it had always been glued to her hand. She had always been on that thing—playing games, talking to friends and family, and texting people. But once it was out of sight, it was quickly out of mind. I was skeptical when those in the know told me she wouldn’t miss her phone, but that’s exactly what happened.
But if she didn’t have her phone, how could I communicate with Peggy when I wasn’t there? Fortunately, the memory care staff had options for residents to contact their loved ones, and vice versa. Inside a tiny private office (no bigger than a closet) where they stored supplies, they had set up a small desk and chair, and numerous iPads that were constantly being charged, so that there was always one ready if residents wanted to Facetime with family or friends.
There was also a landline phone on the desk, and that was how I was able to reach Peggy during this time. The way it worked was that I would call the facility’s main line, they would put me through to memory care, and then staff would go get Peggy, sit her down in the office, and we could have a somewhat private conversation. This worked out well for a couple of months.
Some time later, however, Peggy began telling me with some frequency during these calls that staff were stealing stuff out of her room, and that they were doing it all the time. I didn’t know what to make of this. My sister’s friend Michael visited her every other day, and I’d been coming in person more often, and neither of us saw anything missing from her room. We’d frequently do an inventory, and everything was always there. But Peggy was adamant about the thefts. We were baffled, but determined to keep investigating until we figured out what was going on.
Was something really happening with her stuff, like that time a resident swiped Peggy’s phone because she mistook it for her television remote? And if not, what could have triggered this paranoid perception in Peggy? Next time we were on a call, I asked her to describe for me what was happening right then. She didn’t hesitate to tell me that, not only did people always steal stuff from her room when she was on the phone, she said it was happening right now.
Thing is, I knew she couldn’t see her room from that tiny office, because it was located near the entrance to memory care, and the hallway leading to her room from there had a slight curve in it. You couldn’t look straight down that hall and see her room at all, even if you were standing in the office doorway. So there was no way she could see people stealing things out of her room.
Then the lightbulb came on for me. At that moment, she thought the office was her room, and that the office supplies being stored there were her things. So I asked her if people were taking things out of the desk? Yes. Were they moving the iPads? Yes. I asked her a few more questions in the same vein, and she answered “yes” to all of them. The big mystery was solved!
It was kind of weird how she came to believe that the little office was her room, but that’s clearly what she thought, and it wasn’t going to be helpful for me to tell her any different. Because arguing with a person with dementia is always doomed to failure; they just cannot process information like they used to anymore. Arguing risks a meltdown—and nobody wants that.
Instead, I assured her that I would talk to the memory care director about it, and asked if that would help. Peggy said it would, and she sounded relieved. (Of course, I never told the director. But we couldn’t use that office for phone calls any more because it was too stressful for Peggy.)
So, we brought her iPhone back to her, but in a completely new form. First, we put it in a “military grade” phone case, which looked nothing like her old case. We knew if she dropped it or threw it, it wasn’t going to shatter or take on any damage. Then we removed every extra app and widget, leaving only the ability to receive calls from people on her favorites list.
We also installed a generic wallpaper that she had never seen before, and gave the phone to staff for safekeeping. It worked like a charm for the rest of her time in memory care—well, until she reached Stage 7 and had no idea what a phone even was.
