Hearing knocking at nighttime?

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Caregiver1997 Asked September 2020

Hearing knocking at nighttime?

Hello, all :) So this is something that has been going on for years and years. My Grandma is 88 years old and has dementia. She lives downstairs in her own house, because we have an addition.

When she goes to bed at night, she is safe and sound. All of a sudden, she hears knocking that wakes her right up out of her sleep. She gets up out of bed, grabs her walker, and goes to the door to see who is there. (The door opens to her living room. Couch, tv, chairs. Well lit) Nobody is ever there. Ever.

She is so adamant that someone is knocking on her door. Even when I tell her nobody is there, and it is quiet as a mouse in her living room. “Believe me when I tell you”, she says. I tell her nobody was knocking. “Well I heard it, and it was loud!”

She refuses to listen, and is so insistent about this. That someone knocks on her door, then when she sees nobody is there, it is peaceful and quiet. Does she think someone knocked and ran? You enter the living room to stillness and calm.

I have told her that I can hear over the intercom in her room any noises. Plus trying to reassure her that nobody can possibly gain access to the inside into her living room. And that I am able to see and hear from my room upstairs, and that she is safe. But that never works, because she says “Someone was there, they knocked really loud! I heard it!” but then opens her door to no one in sight.

I have said to her before “notice how you only hear the knocking when you are sleeping? Not when you are in the bathroom or sitting in your living room?” And she had no answer.

You cannot reason with dementia. She is so serious about this, someone being there and knocking, you cannot change her mind. No one is ever there, and trying to give her that reassurance is hard when she does not believe you.

Alzheimer's & Dementia Delusions Dementia Behaviors Hallucinations

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score 1 · Answer 1

Yes he would be asleep and would hear knocking at the apartment door. And also noises outside the window although his apartment was on 4th floor. And when he moved to memory care, he thought the security guard would come in his room at night. There were no security guards. He had extremely vivid elaborate dreams that involved a theme of being threatened by people in cars. He told the psych doctor that there was a submarine under his bed trying to kill him. In WWII, his job was submarine spotting from a plane. So some of this was grounded in past history. It all got better when they started him on anti-psychotic meds in addition to lexapro which is an anti depressant. I hated to do this but he was so fearful and for him it worked great.

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score 2 · Answer 2

She may be developing vascular dementia. That causes auditory and visual hallucinations. My FIL thought people were knocking in the middle of the night. Not every night but it was very real. It was part of his increasing paranoia about being in danger. He moved from independent living to memory care and was put on meds because in his case, he was more and more fearful.

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She has had dementia for years now, as it has certainly become more apparent within the past five or so years. Was he asleep when he heard this knocking? Because my Grandma never hears it during the day. Just when she is sleeping soundly, and it wakes her right up. That is exactly it. She insists it is very real. And you cannot tell her otherwise. That increase of paranoia can be dangerous for himself. Glad he was put on more meds, for that reason.

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score 2 · Answer 3

In the south we have hurricane shutters on our homes. They can be left open or closed in front of the window. They are on hinges. If the latch isn’t secure they will knock against the house loudly.

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Really? That makes perfect sense as to what would cause the knocking sound. But we are in the northeast and have no hurricane shutters. It is something, isn’t it?

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