Even as other people moved into his apartment, David became convinced that it wasn’t his apartment.  At first I thought he was having trouble with the fact that he was no longer in the familiar townhome, but that wasn’t the issue.  There was another apartment, he told me, that was like this one down to the last detail but was somewhere else – usually across the hall.  We would go out of the apartment together to check, and we’d note that the art room was across the hall.  I hoped that going out, looking at the art room, and coming back in would reset his sense of place so that the apartment would be the right apartment.  Sometimes that happened, but often we’d come back from apartment-hunting and he’d look around, silent and wretched.  His real apartment wasn’t where he thought it was, but this wasn’t it either.  “You probably think I’m crazy,” he’d say softly. 

Even though I’d read about “reduplicative paramnesia,” this kind of doubling, David’s search for the twin apartment startled me.  He’d always thought in floorplans and had never needed the part I look for, “you are here.”  But reduplicative paramnesia, like hallucinations, is a common feature of LBD.  The unfamiliar surroundings, the upheaval in routine, the isolation, the masking of faces – something he found deeply frightening – made the vague, ephemeral shapes and the not-quite-right sense of place into vivid, persistent, distressing delusions.

Had the move been a mistake?  I didn’t know, and in any case the house had sold.  My house was no safer for him than his had been; I had the same kind of floor plan.  Assisted living had sounded like a good solution until he needed memory care, the next level in the “continuum of care.”  But because of lockdown, his “assisted living” apartment featured no assistance except mine, and he was completely isolated unless I was there.  After months of longing to move to that building, David was now referring to his apartment as his jail cell.

The microwave was broken, he reported, and so was the washing machine.  Both required a forceful pull to open them, and David had trouble timing and directing force, so he pulled hard on latched handles.  The toilet was broken, he reported.  It was actually clogged, but he couldn’t use the plunger to unclog it.  Taking over the laundry and cleaning was easier than calming him and solving household crises, but David hated the idea of adding to my workload and hated his own helplessness.  I would suggest that he dust or fold laundry while I vacuumed and mopped and cleaned up messes.  I’ve read about people with LBD who feel a sense of accomplishment as they complete chores like dusting and folding laundry, but David was well aware that he was contributing little, and it made him miserable.  I could manage the meals and laundry and cleaning, but I couldn’t do much to ease his shame, helplessness, and dismay.