Horror Aficionados discussion

Hi,
Recently I have been researching and gathering accounts from dementia sufferers and their carers. I have been amazed how similar some cases are, and how scary some of the 'hallucinations' can be. The interest came after living with my grandfather, who also suffered from the disease.
I have had an article in my local paper, which you can read here:

http://www.midsussextimes.co.uk/news/...

And also a video I have done with some of the accounts, which you can see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWcjE...

As the research is still ongoing, I am interested in anyone else has experiences, or knew of someone with dementia and the things they claim to have seen?
I find the subject fascinating.

www.facebook.com/MrFeatherstone

As a nurse at nursing homes and psychiatric facilities, I have listened to many accounts of hallucinations of dementia patients. I have always found interesting the overwhelming number of reports of "little people". Coming out of heating ducts, peeking in the windows, outside in the yard at night, even scampering around their houses. Always thought one day I would do a short story on the subject!

My dad is also a nurse and his previous employment was on the dementia ward of a nursing. He never really spoke much about it, but I'll have to ask him a few questions related to this thread. I figured because it's such a high-stress job he didn't want to talk about it when he was off.

Thanks!

And 'little people' is quite a common occurrence it would seem. Fascinating really. Makes you wonder why....

One wonders if Alzheimer's, while destroying parts of the brain, triggers other dormant parts that allow one to see what is always there, but invisible to the rest of us.

I did look into that. Some people believe that babies/young children and even some animals have this 'gift'..

The link only takes me to the front page. Could you post one to the article? Also, the video link says "video doesn't exist."

I did find the link on your FB page and the story looks interesting. This could be a major new insight. I took care of my father who had alzheimers and at night I would hear the freezer door on the refrigerator constantly opening and closing. It was baffling. He liked to suck on ice cubes but he could not walk or even get out of his hospital bed without major help. I would bring him an ice cube every time I passed by his room but the noises happened when I was busy and not attending to him. Maybe his spirit energy was opening and closing the freezer when I wasn't there, in an attempt to sooth his cravings.

When my kidneys failed in 2007, I was placed in a medically induced coma for nearly a month. It took me several weeks to come out of that drugged stupor. I had all kinds of hallucinations and paranoid delusions during that time.

At one point, I thought I was Jesus Christ, here for the second coming. I was also convinced they were trying to kill me.

One recurring hallucination was "Big John", a trucker that traveled the country killing people, ala Dexter, only killing people that deserved it. I even had a theme song for a TV show running through my head (ala Johnny Cash's Big Bad John):

"Big John.

You never wanna meet 'im.
Unless you really need 'im.

Big John."

After I was out of the coma about two weeks, most of the hallucinations stopped, but I still couldn't process questions. My mind just couldn't work itself around the issue and come up with an answer. Pretty scary.

That experience was one reason I laughed at the opening of The Walking Dead, where Rick has been in the hospital bed for a long time because of the gunshot wound. He wouldn't have been wearing shorts under his gown. They get in the way of cleaning up the body after a natural event. Maybe a diaper? And he would have had a stomach feeding tube, a trach tube in his throat for breathing, and a catheter up his wazoo for urination. The real horror would have been pulling out that catheter when he was severely dehydrated. Ouch!