My mother is in a nursing home with advanced dementia. Although bed-bound, having hallucinations, and sadly with a seemingly diminishing grasp of reality she is sometimes remarkably intuitive, eg in recent weeks:
- She warned me not to go to a certain dentist. I rarely visit a dentist, and she has never talked of dentists in
her present condition, but I had been just a few days earlier to have a crown replaced. She could not have
known that I was due to visit a dentist. - I usually take the bus alone to visit her home, but on this occasion was given a lift by my partner. My mother
asked if “they were waiting for me”. She has not said this before or since and there was no way for her to have known I was given a ride on that day. - I usually work at home and rarely travel into the city for business, but on this occasion had been to the city the previous week and secured some forthcoming work that would mean me spending 2 days a week in the city for a while. When I told my mother I was working tomorrow, she asked if I was going to the city, although she could not have known of these plans.
- Her younger brother passed away suddenly and her family decided not to tell her. A few days afterwards her elder brother visited the home and mentioned their sibling’s passing to the nursing staff. He was surprised to find that they already knew, because my mother had told them – even though she had no physical way to have learned this information!
Could it be that somehow, despite her Alzheimer’s, part of her mind is able to access information beyond the physical senses?
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