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My husband cannot quit sorting through and moving his personal things.

Posted by labrown @labrown, Apr 7 6:50am

I have found that whenever I leave my husband alone for a few minutes, he wanders into the bedroom and begins sorting through all of his personal belongings. He goes into his closet and he moves everything in his walk-in closet around, trying to compact it into as small of an area as he can. He pulls things out and lays them on the bed so he can determine where to move them to. He has also taken everything that he has out of the dresser drawers and the night stand drawers. He never goes into my closet nor does he try to remove my things from my drawers. It’s like he doesn’t want anything personal. The bedroom area is the only place he does this in the house. I have to go behind him and move things back or put them in my closet or drawers so I can find them when needed. When I ask him why he feels the need to do this his he says to keep “them” from stealing everything. He is very paranoid that there are people here, in and around our home, that want to hurt him or steal from him. He does the same in our outside storage area and barn. He is moving or hiding everything…needless to say life at our house is very disorganized and I can’t even find simple tools anywhere…
I have read of and know this behavior is normal in the world of dementia, but how long will he stay in this phase? He is wearing me down. When he is in this mindset there is no redirecting him. He is in year four of his official diagnosis.

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bobcmcc | @bobcmcc | 1 day ago

I’m experiencing the same behaviors with my DW
I’ve arrived at the stage that I have to accept what I cannot change. This is a behavior that is not harmful to anyone- bothersome, yes, but not something I can’t live with

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labrown | @labrown | 1 day ago
In reply to @memoriestomoments "Dear @labrown I used to think that one of the members of my local caregiver group..." + (show)
Profile picture for memoriestomoments @memoriestomoments

Dear @labrown

I used to think that one of the members of my local caregiver group was lucky because her husband happily organized his many plant seeds for hours every day. The previous responders to your post have shared great ideas about how they have dealt with similar "re-arrangement of items". But what I tuned into in your post was this: "When I ask him why he feels the need to do this his he says to keep “them” from stealing everything. He is very paranoid that there are people here, in and around our home, that want to hurt him or steal from him." I am so sorry to hear this. It must be very disturbing to him.

My whole approach to the 16 years of Alzheimer's that we have lived through has been to keep my husband from feeling the negative effects of the illness. My approach has been to increasingly structure his days so that he is always carried along on a set of pleasant events or moments. This way, as the Alzheimer's-driven confusion increased, he was never left to stew in that confusion, or the dark thoughts that the confusion seemed to engender. I wonder if more distraction would drive out some of the paranoia. I understand that this puts more of a burden on you, but if you turn this campaign of positive distraction into activities that BOTH of you enjoy, there is a huge ( potentially even life altering ) double benefit: He avoids the paranoia and you get enjoyment time, which, I suspect is not abundant in your life right now. Of course, if you can dole out some of the distraction/enjoyment activities to other friends or hired companions, you can also gain some peaceful work or rest time for yourself.

Let me say that my husband's symptoms have not included paranoia. (For a brief time he started to feel afraid, but I was able to change that because it stemmed from a particular set of interactions that I could stop for him). A brief amount of reading on this indicates that the recommendation for treating paranoia is therapy and medication. Therapy is probably not an option at this stage (and the Pleasant Moments "'treatment" above may be the nearest substitute). But you may want to talk to his doctor about medication. This disease robs our loved ones of so much; it is terrible to think that pain like this paranoia is what it 'gifts' instead.

Wishing you and your husband all the best.

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@memoriestomoments Thank you for your reply. It truly blessed my heart. Walking this journey with your husband for 16 years gives you a lot of experience to be able to share with others. You sound like you are a very compassionate person and your husband is fortunate to have you. I agree with your approach to keeping him occupied with pleasant events and moments. I try to do the same with my husband. I cannot leave him unattended so where I go he goes. We are out and about pretty regular running errands or going to appointments. He attends a four hour Respite program two days a week at a local church that is wonderful. He never thinks he wants to go, but once there he enjoys it and he is always smiling when I pick him up. We also have teenage grands that keep us on the go supporting their various activities. He seems to enjoy it all. At home I try to find things he can help with...washing up the dishes, folding laundry, doing puzzles, and going for walks. His paranoia appears when I least expect it. We can be having a great day and then go for a walk at a local park and suddenly he is scared to the point that we have to leave. He believes people are there to hurt him, they have guns (it's strange, he never includes me in the danger that he feels) they are hollering at him...the actual scenario was there was a nice couple there with their grandchildren, they said hello and commented on how pretty our dogs were and from that it began. He did have an appointment with his neurologist yesterday and he adjusted his medication so maybe it will help. Thank you again for taking the time to share so much with me. God be with you as you continue on this journey with your husband.

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