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Some dementia can cause people to hear a voice, but since she shows no other signs of an issue, there is likely some simpler explanation. Even so, I'd talk to her doctor about it.
Take care,
Carol
I googled "Old Black Joe" and wiki said it was now considered racist and making fun of Old Black Joe, a slave. Hearing it from the lips of my 83-year-old mother with dementia and where she and my father are now in life I know that is not what this is about.
I learned the words and we sang it together. It helped distract from the annoyance of hearing a song and it brought me into her world, too-- and history. I think of such sharing with my mother as a precious window into the past that will soon close from living memory, since this song was old even when my mother was a child in the 1930s:
OLD BLACK JOE
Gone are the days when my heart was young and gay,
Gone are my friends from the cotton fields away,
Gone from the earth to a better land I know,
I hear their gentle voices calling "Old Black Joe".
Chorus
I’m coming, I’m coming, for my head is bending low:
I hear those gentle voices calling, "Old Black Joe".
organist. He could change the song by just "thinking" of a different song. Many nights, I would hear him singing "Old Man River". How strange, I thought! But figured he just was singing and he was not the singing type. It was so disturbing to him because he could not sleep or think or concentrate. It was in his head all
the time. I took him to the best EMT I could find and they could not find anything wrong with him. I know my dad REALLY did here the music and was not making up anything. I decided to research this myself in great detail and talk to everyone I knew. This is what I found out....MUSICAL EAR SYMDROME" is a VERY REAL
CONDITION. It mostly occurs in older people with hearing problems. It is brought on by STRESS/ CHANGES in their LIFE (like loss of spouse/companion) or anticipation of losing someone close & LONELINESS. There are no medications for this. My dad passed away 6 weeks after my mom of "BROKEN HEART SYMDROME" (which is also a VERY REAL CONDITION). I hope this helps you.
Other side communications - they do happen.
When my father crossed over, someone helping me with his house 3,000 miles away, that next week, commented that the toilet wouldn't shut off. On closer exam she noticed the chain came loose from the ball lever so she fixes it. Next day the chain was off again and the second bathroom had the same problem.
She reported it to me and I had had the same problem happening in my condo - for the first time, fixed it, and it had happened a second day.
In the middle of grumbling fixing it the second time I tuned into the possible "message": he was letting me know my "ball and chain", my endlessly needy father, had made it across.
After I said an out loud "Thank you for letting me know you made it. " - neither his house nor my condo had any repeat episodes of the ball and chain or anywhere else.
For an unrelated reason, we happened to take her to the audiologist - who found that Mom had shoved a hearing aid battery into each ear. It took the ENT, using his super-duper ear vacuum, to suck the batteries (with tabs still attached) out of Mom's ears. She hasn't heard the opera singer since.
A friend of mine who is an audiologist told me that it's not uncommon for an elderly person with dementia to mistakenly put batteries directly in their ears instead of in the hearing aid. She's seen it happen quite often.
The batteries may very well be picking up some signal, but I suggest you definitely rule this out as a reason by taking her to the ENT ASAP.
We bought the book for dad so he could read for himself that there IS an explanation for this. We wondered if what Dad was hearing was a memory of himself singing, since my dad sang tenor in the church choir for about 50 years. When he heard this man singing, it was always church hymns.
He was so determined to prove us wrong that the next time he heard the singing, he said it was a baritone and he didn't know the song. I just laughed out loud at that one! My mother, who also sang in church choirs from childhood, said she heard a choir singing. She thought it was carolers on the lawn, even though it was the middle of summer. But she heard a choir singing Christmas music.
We finally convinced Dad to wear his hearing aids every day, and these events tapered off. The more he hears and is engaged in what is going on around him, the less he hears these sounds in his head. Once Dad stopped hearing music, Mom did too. Can't really explain that...
From time to time if he hasn't been wearing his hearing aids, he will hear singing or hear a man talking to him. He asks if we hear it too, and we tell him "Sorry, no." We don't argue with him about it, because it is very real to him.
Hope this helps! Buy the book and share it with your mom. Good luck!
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