Funniest/strangest dementia patient stories

Nurses Humor

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I'm sure we all have them, especially those of us who have worked in LTC. Here are some of mine:

  • climbing into other residents' beds and taking a nap...one time we found the resident sleeping in a bed that was already occupied by the resident it belonged to--they were both sleeping in there!!
  • putting pajamas in the toilet, then having an extra-large BM right on top of them
  • taking a cup that had some medication mixed in juice, then turning to the person sitting next to her and saying "here, you can have this"--fortunately I was able to take it back before the other resident could get a hold of it
  • wandering around in the hall and grabbing people's butts
  • blowing nose into a tissue, then using same tissue to "clean" nurse's station counter :barf02:

What other funny/crazy things have you guys seen dementia patients do?

Specializes in Cath lab, acute, community.

She would place toothpaste into her wounds... turns out toothpaste isn't a great wound healer. She ended up with a very serious ulcer and MRSA!

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Specializes in Med nurse in med-surg., float, HH, and PDN.

I had a patient once who would use the same liquid medicine on his diabetic foot wounds as he would use on his CATTLE.....As I recall, it had iodine and colloidal silver in it, among a few other things.........it didn't make them worse, but it didn't do any healing either.

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Worked at a Catholic nursing home as an aide in high school. They didn't have a dedicated Alzheimer's unit, but first floor may as well have been one.

Pt 1, would alternate between gleefully singing "toot, toot, rush rush, always in a rush" or screaming "you ****** **** I know you're the one that murdered my husband" whenever anyone walked past her.

Pt 2, retired priest, liked to grab at breasts and, uh, girly bits. If we told him it was inappropriate he'd say "Young lady, I gave my best years to God himself. I can do what I want now." He said it all righteous and mighty, too lol

Pt 3, used to be a seamstress, any paper or fabric that was within her reach would be folded to perfection. She got her hands on a patient chart one day, had the whole thing out of the binder, stacked nicely, with about a third folded into tiny squares before anyone saw what she was folding. That lady was so kind, I missed working with her when I left. She never spoke a word, but when she was in a lucid state she would pat your hand and just had this look of caring in her eyes that didn't need words....

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Specializes in IMC.

When I was a CNA about 15 years ago I was working the night shift in a LTCF:

We had a resident that got scheduled Bisacodyl supp. She was extremely confused, but never combative. Her supp was scheduled at 0600 and she called the the "Silver bullets" I went in with the nurse to help her give the supp, and we did explain to res what we were doing and turned her on her side, as the nurse had finished up giving the supp, the res looked her straight in the eyes and said.."When I get out of here, I am going to stick one of those things up your butt to see how you like it!" We left the room laughing so hard! :rotfl:

We had another resident(same facility) That was confused, but never talked. Her roommate was her husband. One night another CNA and I were changing her. Out of the blue she looked at me and asked where her husband was. I told her her husband was in the next bed sleeping and her eyes got big and she smiled and said good he's not dead. I did not know what to say. And I never heard her say anything again.

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Specializes in Emergency Nursing.

I am in tears laughing about this thread!

When I was a nurse's aide sometimes I would get assigned to sit with confused patients. One patient used to be a pilot and liked purchasing small planes. All night he thought he was on an airplane doing a test flight (and I was the owner trying to make a sale) and had questions about the specs of the engine, the price, the airfield. Then he would say "Can you get one of the girls (stewardess) to bring me a blanket and some coffee?". He was so sweet!

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I took care of this older lady (over 100 years old). She was one of the nicest people I've ever met. One day a Physical Theripist came to do an assentment on her. The 3 of us walked the halls because he didn't believe me when I said that she doesn't use a walker at her age. After the guy left this lady said, "That was nice of your husband to go on a walk with us, he is very good looking,". I've had never seen that guy ever. It was funny though, and she was right about the guy being good looking, lol.

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Specializes in Palliative, Onc, Med-Surg, Home Hospice.

I have a resident who is 100 yo, who one day went went to a private room to use the bathroom. when I explained she need to go to her room (semi-private) she told me it was okay, the room she was in was her husbands. That came as a shock to the 62yo man who lived in the room. :) She still insists this man is her husband.

I had another resident, when I was a CNA in IL (In Crystal Lake) who would call the Chicago Police dept. to report the we were raping her. The first two times she did it, they called the CLPD, who responded. It got so they would just call us and tell us the take away the phone from her. She also called her (dead) alderman's office at least once a week.

I had to give a resident Dig, so of course, had to do an apical pulse on her. She was real sweet and cooperative. She took her meds after I got her pulse. As I was leaving the room, she called out to "See you later, you little ****".

Dementia patients keep me on my toes and are the only reason I have stayed the facility I am at. I enjoy working with them

ETA I nearly forgot about one lady who thinks her bed is a car. She crawls out of bed and we'll find her under the bed "fixing it". She also asked me to re-inflate the tires because the bed was running but it wouldn't move because the tires were flat. She's a double amputee, and she crawls out of bed all the time. we still haven't figured out how it is she hasn't gotten hurt. She's a pip though

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Specializes in tele, oncology.

Last night I had an extremely confused, incontinent LOL. My tech was one of our "baby" staff...he's been qorking with us for a few years now but is in his early 20's, over ten years older than me. He cleaned up said LOL by himself, and I walked in to give her some meds immediately after. She looked at me very indignantly and said "Do you have any idea what your husband just did to me?" Which was followed about fifteen minutes later, as she saw him pass by her room in the hall, with "Who's that good looking young man? Can I meet him?" I swear the entire shift with her was like dealing with Dory from "Finding Nemo".

Same patient was thoroughly convinced that we were in her living room, not a patient room at a hospital, and was getting combative trying to get the intruders (us) out of her house. I knew it probably wouldn't help much, but pointed out to her on the wall above her white board where the name of our hospital is as proof that we were not in her home and we were supposed to be helping her get over her illness. Her response: "What ***** put that up in my living room and where the hell is she? I'm gonna beat the crap out of her, putting that ugly ass thing in MY house."

It was a LONG night but oddly enough made me miss working geropsych.

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Specializes in LTC, CPR instructor, First aid instructor..
Last night I had an extremely confused, incontinent LOL. My tech was one of our "baby" staff...he's been qorking with us for a few years now but is in his early 20's, over ten years older than me. He cleaned up said LOL by himself, and I walked in to give her some meds immediately after. She looked at me very indignantly and said "Do you have any idea what your husband just did to me?" Which was followed about fifteen minutes later, as she saw him pass by her room in the hall, with "Who's that good looking young man? Can I meet him?" I swear the entire shift with her was like dealing with Dory from "Finding Nemo".

Same patient was thoroughly convinced that we were in her living room, not a patient room at a hospital, and was getting combative trying to get the intruders (us) out of her house. I knew it probably wouldn't help much, but pointed out to her on the wall above her white board where the name of our hospital is as proof that we were not in her home and we were supposed to be helping her get over her illness. Her response: "What ***** put that up in my living room and where the hell is she? I'm gonna beat the crap out of her, putting that ugly ass thing in MY house."

It was a LONG night but oddly enough made me miss working geropsych.

:rotfl: I just love it. :yeah:
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Specializes in med/surg.

Just yesterday we were at the grocery store and this lady started talking to my daughter (she's 6) and I tried to hurry my daughter along after a minute and said "ok, lets go down the cheese aisle now!" The lady took my daughter's hand and walked with us, talking to her like she was her granddaughter. I went with it, and my daughter, good girl that she is, went along with it too, giving me a backwards "what the heck?" confused/amused grin. We walked up the aisle until we found the woman's husband at the end, looking for her. I pointed him out to her and gave her a hug, told her we would see her later, and told her husband "it's ok." After she went to him and walked away, my daughter asked "who was that, mommy?" I told her that she was a confused old lady that liked to talk to little girls. I told her that we had made her happy for a couple minutes by talking to her and walking with her. I'm sure someday my six year old will understand.

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Specializes in DD, Mental Health, Geriatric.

Years ago at my mother's AFH we were caring for my boyfriend's fraternal grandmother and she had late stage Alzheimer's. She had the habit of "collecting" items and shoving them up her sleeves and down her brief so whenever we would change her an entire silverware drawer with other Nic-nacks would fall out!

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Specializes in Cardiology.

I've had plenty of interesting patients and will undoubtedly have plenty more. Here are some of the more memorable ones:

-LOL with some stroke-related dementia. She constantly told us that she was in NeighboringTown's Hospital. We'd orient her to the fact that she was in ThisTown at the rehab, and she would tell us that obviously, someone had moved NeighboringTown's Hospital to ThisTown.

-Same LOL would call 911 on us all the time to tell them we had a package for her at the front desk but wouldn't give it to her.

-And she would constantly try to disimpact herself. Watch out if she tries to grab your hand. :barf01:

-I'm sitting on my tele floor charting outside a room shared by two LOL, listening to an amusing conversation about the smokers outside their window. It got a whole lot funnier when they started talking about people coming in to listen to their apical HR and wondering why they couldn't listen up by the clavicle. The other replied it was because "they want to see my breasts. They all just want to look at them."

-Same LOL has a psych consult a couple days later. He goes in and the first thing she tells him is her BM status. I realize that every single person who goes into the room gets to hear about how she needs to have a BM, she hasn't had one in a couple days. And I mean EVERYONE who entered the room or walked past. I then turned around and noticed that she was wearing her gown over her street shirt.

-I'm busy with a discharge but it seems everyone is ignoring a particular patient whose light is on constantly. I go in to help (I recognize her from somewhere and know she is one very confused lady who CONSTANTLY has her call light on- I think she was in the hall at a facility where I went to monitor staff doing a stat blood draw as a phleb supervisor) and she is trying to get into the bathroom. We walk into a mess. The toilet has urine & a BM in it, as well as the other pts hat with urine in it & water and urine all over. The woman gets upset and says she will hold it. I clean it all up and take her back in, and she complains, very indignantly, that she doesn't understand who keeps doing that, but the bathroom is always a mess. I tell the nurse for the pt in the other bed about the BM and the amt of urine so he can chart on his pt, and he tells me that his patient isn't ambulatory and has not been getting up to the bathroom at all. So LOL has been making the huge mess she is complaining about, poor thing.

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