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FEATURE ARTICLE:
16 Things You Didn't Know Happened in Dementia
By Tom Chivers, BuzzFeed Staff, UK
Hallucinations are a common symptom of some kinds of dementia.
Jo Bennett, 60, who has early-onset Alzheimer’s, sees “black holes” in her bathroom tiles: “My brain tells me that those square black tiles are in fact holes that go right down to the bottom of the earth and you mustn’t drop anything near them because you’ll never see them again.” More alarmingly, they sometimes appear when she is in the passenger seat of a car: “All of a sudden there’s a big black hole. You know if you drive over it it will go to the bottom of the earth. I have to look out the side window and bring my knees up to my chin as I’m terrified I’ll grab the steering wheel.”
James Tomlinson from Bedford sees ghosts: “It’s just frightening. I get hallucinations where I think there are ghosts living in our garden. But my world seems to take on several dimensions. So I don’t know which house I’m in.”
Carol Ovenstone from Glasgow was misdiagnosed with psychosis because of her hallucinations and spent three months in a psychiatric ward: “They decided I had a psychosis because I was hallucinating, but after three months they told me I actually had Lewy Body dementia.”
It can cause trances – and depression.
Paul Hitchmough is an amateur musician and sailor: “I have a condition due to my Alzheimer’s called ‘induced meditative state’, a neurological type of thing. I just go into a transit – it can happen any time.
“[The first time it happened] I was on the helm of a boat steering, I went into a daze and steered the boat away from its course headed towards rocks to starboard in about five feet of water. I don’t know how long it lasted; if you can imagine your mind going white. I just sit there until I come out of it, but when I come out of it I go into a deep depression. The black dog visits me so to speak, so I have to fight my way out of that one.”
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