Expert View Client Confabulation: the Attorney's Consternation

LibraryAlzheimer's and the Practice of Law: Counseling Clients with Dementia and Their Families (ABA) (2013 Ed.)

EXPERT VIEW Client Confabulation: The Attorney's Consternation

Dr. Nishad "Nick" Nadkarni is a licensed physician and surgeon in Wisconsin and Illinois. In addition, he is certified as a general and forensic psychiatrist. His professional experience includes working in private practice and, starting in 2004, working full time for the Circuit Court of Cook County, Forensic Clinical Services. The Forensic Clinical Services are primarily charged with determining clinical competencies, like fitness to stand trial and fitness for medications, for people indicted or charged with criminal offenses. Part of the training is learning to understand the different levels of capacity from the standpoint of legal definitions of capacity; for example, testamentary capacity, contractual capacity, donative capacity, and other criminal and civil competencies.

Q: Would you say based on your experience that it's common for someone to admit to their dementia or their memory issues?

A: I would say it is not common, and almost always it is outright denied, even in the face of tremendous contradictory evidence.

Q: Despite short-term memory issues, can people develop a masking technique?

A: Yes. One of the techniques is confabulation—the insertion of details to fill in holes in the memory. For example, if I really couldn't remember what happened this morning, I might give you what sounds like a reasonable explanation. You could ask me, "Dr. Nick, what did you do this morning?" and I could say, very convincingly, "I ate breakfast—I had two eggs, bacon, and toast,"...

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