Do the people you care for ever fake sick for attention or because they just don’t want to move?

My mom sometimes says she doesn’t feel good or is sick. Most often when I ask what is wrong she either can’t tell me or says she has pains in her stomach. I tell her to go try to go to the bathroom and usually it is just that she needed to have a bowel movement. Sometimes it seems as though she just doesn’t want to get out of bed or maybe is trying to get attention. When I encourage her to get up and get dressed and sit in her chair, she often doesn’t even know what I am talking about when I ask her later how she is feeling. There has only been 1 day in the 6+ months she has lived with me that she actually stayed in bed all day, but even then got up at dinner and seemed fine. Today she was up sitting in her chair and said she was sick. She said her stomach hurt but that she has already gone to the bathroom. I am afraid that she will be like the boy who cried wolf, and someday (she is 88), when she really is sick I won’t really believe her.

Just wondering how common this is with dementia patients and how you all handle it. Thank you so much!