Both Beverly and her best friend in the facility worried multiple times about being pregnant.  I have not seen reports of how common this is for dementia patients, but it is striking to have them both thinking this way.  Curiously Beverly only raised the issue with me once or twice and never with our two children (that I know of), but it came up multiple times with others.  My first inkling was being asked to meet with the Social Worker for the facility who said Beverly had expressed being upset to the Nurse and the issue was vague, having to do with sex.  Only later did I realize that this could only be her fear of being pregnant since that kept coming up later.  For those of us on the “outside” this seems humorous.

            The issue is related to what some have called “age regression” (a separate issue for another blog), meaning that the patient with Alzheimer’s seems to think that they are the person of many years ago, now perhaps 18 years old.  And, in this case, they are thinking that having sex can make them pregnant, of course. Still it is not clear that the fear of pregnancy and even reporting that she was pregnant, was connected to actually having sex.  Dementia is likely to result in not remembering what actually happened, only that they have had thoughts about having sex.  Indeed it is known that one of the two of them had not had sex in a long time.

            A caregiver reported that the two of them had discussed their fear of pregnancy with each other.  Both were upset about that, but apparently reassured by the caregiver.  The spouse of the other woman reported that it had been raised to him and to others several times.

            In Beverly’s case, the extreme reported incident began with her having a serious crying spell.  The staff member (the woman who was the closest of any staff to Beverly) tried to have a conversation with Beverly about what was wrong as she cried and cried.  After some tugging to get an answer, Beverly finally told her that she was pregnant.  So then her friend asked Beverly how old she was; she said she did not know.   Her friend told her she was over 60.  And “You had a hysterectomy” was  next.  “So you can’t get pregnant.”  She apparently acceded to that and settled down emotionally.  I too had told her more than once that she had the surgery years ago and could not possibly get pregnant.

            Men (including me) seem not as tuned into pregnancy as women, for whom it is a central part of their being, at least for a portion of their life.  Pregnancy is a significant issue for women, sometimes feared when there are undesirable circumstances for pregnancy and greatly desired under the right circumstances.

            This is another of those strange reactions that may happen with dementia.  This one is relatively less consequential than some of the other reactions such as aggression.  But, like much of what happens, it may need to be addressed.  And it seems to be successfully dealt with calmly and rationally; at least it was at this earlier stage of dementia.  And, while it was disturbing for the other husband and me three years ago, at least now we can smile about it.