I feel strongly that my Mom is manipulating me at times! How can she still do that?

Manipulation requires two people, the manipulator and the "victim" (the one who allows to be manipulated).

Folks with dementia certainly CAN maintain their ability to manipulate; it's based on muscle memory which lasts long into the disease process, that's for sure! My aunt with Alz. became catatonic before she stopped manipulating her DD and driving her to the brink of a nervous breakdown! When you're dealing with a manipulative parent every day, I'd love to know how not to 'buy into' their manipulative behavior, too! Perhaps earplugs would work. Caring for a very manipulative and demented elder is a whole new level of punishment that nobody can possibly comprehend until and unless they have firsthand experience with it (which I wouldn't wish on a dog).

Your mother is being passive/aggressive when she hints at what she wants rather than coming right out with a request for it. It's a communication deficit you can read all about on Google if you search out 'passive aggressive'. There are ways to respond to that behavioral irritation, I know, I've dealt with it my whole life. The silent treatment is another notorious punishment doled out by PA people in authority.

My mother is in the advanced stage of dementia herself and only now beginning to stop being manipulative with me. She still has her breakthrough moments though on days when she's more lucid and trying to get her way by using guilt tactics. I can see it coming a mile away. And then I duck for cover.

Don't believe it when others tell you it's 'impossible'. It's not. I've witnessed it for the past 5+ years since my mother was diagnosed with progressive dementia. Just Sunday, in fact, she told me she was dying, I called the Memory Care; the nurse told me he had received a message from the staff to go into her room b/c she told them the same thing. When he got there he told her that her daughter had asked him to go see her (BIG MISTAKE RIGHT THERE) and she said..........."Why is she bothering YOU? I'm just fine! My daughter is just making up stories."

Old habits die hard. Even when dementia is at play.

You can certainly change the way you respond to it. There's no way to be manipulated unless you buy into it.

Have you talked to your sisters about this? If you can all agree about what is going on, it might help to deal with the sympathy lies, and perhaps all come up with a way to resist the manipulation.

Michelle,
Have you ever noticed how early in life children adopt manipulative skills? I believe that social "skill" is one of the first to learn and the last to go. Even in dementia. My mom is well advanced into her dementia (approx stage 6) and was finally unable to maintain it. Though others here might disagree with me, I do believe some with dementia retain this ability, especially if it's something they've been doing for a long time.