The 36-Hour Day: A Family Guide to Caring for People Who Have Alzheimer Disease, Other Dementias, and Memory Loss (A Johns Hopkins Press Health Book)

by Nancy L. Mace

Sometimes people who have dementia take off their clothes or wander out into the living room or down the street undressed. One teenage boy came home to find his father sitting on the back porch reading the newspaper. He was naked except for his hat. Occasionally, people who have dementia will expose themselves in public. Sometimes they will fondle their genitals. Or they will fidget in such a way that their fidgeting reminds others of sexual behaviors. One man repeatedly undid his belt buckle and unzipped his trousers. A woman kept fidgeting with the buttons of her blouse. Sometimes brain damage will cause a person to demand sexual activities frequently or inappropriately. But much more common than actual inappropriate sexual behavior is the myth that old people commonly develop inappropriate sexual behaviors. One wife who brought her husband to the hospital for care confessed that she had no problems managing him but that she had been told that, as he got worse, he would go into his “second childhood” and start exposing himself to little girls. There is no basis to this myth. Inappropriate sexual behaviors in people with illnesses that cause dementia are uncommon. In a study of our patients with dementia, instances of such behavior were very uncommon.