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My grandpa has a obsession with folding. Folding napkins, toilet paper, and buttoning up his shirt. Is there a items to purchase? It's becoming very wasteful especially with toilet paper.

He could wear an adult-size bib and fold and unfold the front of it all day long.
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Reply to Fawnby
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My dad with dementia does this all the time. He can't blow his nose without folding the Kleenex tissue in half. He also can’t use toilet paper unless he folds a number of sheets into a square. Any napkins are folded and stuck into the pocket of his flannel shirts or into pocket of his sweatpants…..I have to go thru each pocket before washing his clothes. He used to always have to have a cloth hankie in his pocket , now it’s napkins, and we go through ALOT of napkins. It literally drives me insane!!
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Reply to Bobbie61
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Folding is actually the answer to the obsession and the behavior is quite common.
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Reply to MACinCT
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Folding is actually the answer to the obsession and the behavior is quite common.
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Reply to MACinCT
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Cierapennell: It's a characteristic sometimes acquired by individuals suffering from dementia.
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Reply to Llamalover47
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At one stage during dementia, my dad was obsessed with pulling vines off trees and fences, his own or he would stray into neighbors property too. Or straightening pine straw on the ground into rows on his hands and knees for hours. Then it was sorting change, like quarters, dimes, etc but he couldn’t put the coins into paper rolls so they were just in piles that I would later mess back up so he could sort them again. There was another stage where he vacuumed for 3, 4, even 5 or
more hours straight — one small rug over and over, and then examined it up close with a flash light to see whether every dog hair and piece of dust was gone, which he said it never was. It drove my mom around the bend. Folding sounds pretty innocuous.
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Reply to Suzy23
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My MIL had Alzheimers and always kept her hands moving. When she didn't have anything to manipulate, she worked the bolts out of her Geri chair at the memory care nursing home.
Fiddling with objects or folding is very common.
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Reply to JanPeck123
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Have him fold the Laundry - this is Normal .
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Reply to KNance72
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It’s so interesting, isn’t it? In my DHs case there is an element of NOT being wasteful with paper products. He will fold his slightly used tissues and paper towels and stack them in a drawer to be used again as needed. I now check the drawers daily and throw them all away. I know in his mind he’s being frugal but it’s actually the opposite.

I do have him fold his own clean laundry and he gets enjoyment out of packing the kitchen trash into the smallest space possible.
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Reply to Peasuep
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This is definitely a symptom of dementia. My mother didn't fold anything but she went through a phase where she was tying everything up in knots!
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Reply to rcnyc2364
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It can become obsessional as with any motion done repetitively with a dementia on board. I think it is a way of bringing order to the mind, sort of like OCD causing people to line things up. It is something our mind tends to do in stressful situations. Recently experienced it myself. Am of a bit of an OCD nature; think straightening up a crooked frame before it makes me nuts. Recently, when my mate had a severe stroke I found myself upon return from hospital kind of lining things up: change bowl, keys, glasses, pen. Caught myself attempting to bring order to my mind.

When I was an RN and we had agitated women patients we could bring them out near nurse station in a tray table chair and ask for their help folding washclothes for us. They would stay happily occupied for hours with this simple task.
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Reply to AlvaDeer
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It is highly common with dementia patients. My mother does this all the time when sitting up at a table. I do what the others have advised too. I have about 100 dollar tree napkins that she folds and refolds when she is visiting me.

I was perplexed at first but found out this is a relaxing practice with her. Keeps her busy and her anxiety level isn't high.

Edit to add: There are Dementia Blankets (much like sensory mats for babies) that work really well for my moms anxiety and keeps her busy for about 20 minutes. I found them on Amazon.
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Reply to AMZebbC
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In order to help my 100-yr old Aunt with advanced dementia to "burn energy" during the day so that she would sleep better at night we purchased a large amount of cheap kitchen towels for her to sit and fold. When she was done I'd take them away to another room, mess them all up and bring them back out for her to continue to fold.

I'm not sure you can stop him from folding those other things (unless you lock the bathroom door and hide the napkins) but you can direct that behavior to something you choose for him. Sometimes people with dementia can have OCD-like behavior. You could consult his primary doc about this, maybe he needs meds for anxiety, which many many seniors with dementi do need.
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Reply to Geaton777
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Hi, I've seen that a tad, not to this extreme, but I think it's a way for them to help them relax. I feel this is more common with women because they did more of the busy work, there whole life.

When I did some caregiveing for someone with dementia and she was frustrated I would give her a laundry basket of clothes to fold, and some days I would take the clothes she folded, shake them out and bring them back to her, and say , something like I found another basket of clothes, can you fold these for me too, and she would light right up.

Id let him fold away, as long as he is happy, I will say I suspect he will get dry hands and need lotion. Buy a bunch of cheap hankies maybe

The thing with dementia, is this is probably just a spell, it might last a while it might not, but a new issue a new problem will come up, and you will be wishing, that folding would make him happy again.

That's my feelings anyways
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Reply to Anxietynacy
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