Is it possible that my Mother in law is faking dementia and feebleness?

isthisreal - your MIL sounds like my 82 y.o. Alz. mother. When she wants attention or things her way, she will exaggerate or pretend to be sick, coughing and gagging, and walking with an exaggerated limp like she's going to pass out. But as soon as she gets what she wants, she's all well again. A few times, I call her out on it, she just conveniently forgets the whole thing and doesn't know what I'm talking about. So yes, Alz. patients can pretend and can be good at it, too.

My Mother has never sat still my while life - until the stroke that put her in a wheelchair :(

Used to be always pottering around, always busy. Now may appear to others to have no short memory as keeps asking/talking about same issues. Her memory may indeed be slipping with age too but I know her behaviours of checking, rechecking & endless loops of complusive thinking cause this in her.

Going anywhere as a kid became a nightmare for a while. Endless checking windows were locked, oven was off etc. The fear was real to her - would paralyze her. Not to shuffling walk but definately not seeing something right in front of her.

I too get *sad Mum* that tells me "I'm sad I had a stroke". This pity speech seems to be only rehearsed for me.

So good question Isthisreal! I've wondered the same thing myself! Only a neuro eval by a trained expert I think could work it out. Either way, she's old, kindness will always be kind.

You say MIL was examined by a neurologist.......was she given a cognizance test like a MOCA test, for example? Where she's asked a battery of different questions (memory related) and also asked to draw a picture of a clock showing a certain time (which tests executive brain function)? If not, it's kind of hard to say whether she's going down the dementia road or not. Some women (my mother included) are real Drama Queens and love to exaggerate, making the smallest thing into a gigantic issue and The End of The World, loving the attention it generates. My mother, however was also diagnosed with progressive dementia in 2016. So, with her, it's a combination of Drama Queen behavior AND dementia, making a molotov cocktail of a mess, if you get my drift. By the way....my mother is also a VERY high anxiety individual which makes her difficult to begin with. The behavior of an anxiety ridden person in general is often odd and hard to figure out.

The other tricky thing about your MIL is the poor eyesight. When an elder has poor eyesight, combined with poor balance and maybe poor hearing thrown in, they have trouble figuring out where they are in space. That can throw them off kilter in general.

So, really, who knows what's happening with your MIL? She could be Showtiming with the other family members........bringing out her Best Face and relying on small talk & muscle memory to show how 'with it' she is, while with your wife, the 'real' her comes out. That's another possibility. But at 86, I'm sure she's not as 'with it' as she used to be, that's for sure!

Best of luck!

I agree that you are seeing the changes normal to that age, and especially so if there is any anxiety. Anxiety can easily mimic dementia in that you cannot find ANYTHING. When anxiety hits me hard it is almost like being paralyzed. Cannot see, cannot hear, cannot think, and utterly no idea what I am doing. A total fog. And when it lifts those moments are the lost weekend compressed into a small amount of time. The fact that she is also taking anti-anxiety meds? I can tell you it would be difficult to know WHAT is happening. The best guage is a neuro exam. Those tests are there for a reason. They are not easy to beat. Good luck going forward.