Dementia And Wanting To Go Home

Is The Environment Bothering Them

There could be a variety of reasons behind a persons desire to return home, one of which could be associated with fulling an environmental need. A person who is living with dementia may experience a great deal of discomfort if the setting in which they find themselves does not have a welcoming, comfortable, familar, or practical, vibe to it.

Are there any smells or textures that would be comforting and familiar to them?

Aggressive Behaviour In Dementia

In the later stages of dementia, some people with dementia will develop what’s known as behavioural and psychological symptoms of dementia .

The symptoms of BPSD can include:

• increased agitation

These types of behaviours are very distressing for the carer and for the person with dementia.

It’s very important to ask your doctor to rule out or treat any underlying causes, such as:

• uncontrolled pain
• infection, such as a urinary tract infection
• side effects of medicines

If the person you’re caring for behaves in an aggressive way, try to stay calm and avoid confrontation. You may have to leave the room for a while.

If none of the coping strategies works, an antipsychotic medicine can be prescribed as a short-term treatment. This should be prescribed by a consultant psychiatrist.

Consider Moving To A 55 And Older Or Retirement Community

While adding safety features in your existing home is a good option, another option to consider is moving to a community geared to older residents. While these communities may vary in cost, they often come with features that may help care for a loved one at home. Safety features such as nonslip tubs are already in place, and neighbors may have loved ones in similar situations. Many continuing-care retirement communities include areas that offer higher levels of care as a persons dementia advances. This allows a more active spouse to live independently on the same campus.

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Responding When A Person With Dementia Wants To Go Home

People with Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia will often say they want to “go home.” Family members and caregiving staff in nursing homes and assisted living facilities hear this question often. It can be hard to know the best way to answer it.

This article offers some suggestions for how to respond when a person with Alzheimer’s disease says they want to go home.

Establish Whether Or Not They Are Feeling Unhappy Or Lonely

A person with dementia may want to ‘go home’ because of feelings of anxiety, insecurity, depression or fear.

Is the person with dementia happy or unhappy now? If they are unhappy, it may be possible to discover why. If they cannot tell you why, perhaps a member of the staff or another resident knows why.

Like other people, someone with dementia may act out of character to the people closest to them as a result of a bad mood or bad day.

Does the person with dementia keep talking about going home when people are not visiting them in the care home? Does he or she seem to have settled otherwise? The staff in the home may know.

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What It Means When A Person With Dementia Says I Want To Go Home

< ![CDATA[If you are the family caregiver for a senior with Alzheimers disease, a phrase youve likely heard them say is I want to go home. In most cases the older adult is already home, but home is an environment that no longer looks familiar to them. While it might be that memory loss is causing them not to remember their surroundings, the phrase might also mean something else.

Communicating with a Loved One Who Has Dementia

Adults with Alzheimers disease and other forms of dementia often lose some or all of their verbal communications skills fairly early in the disease process. This makes it hard for their loved ones to understand what is wrong or what the senior is trying to say.

Sometimes a person with dementia is searching for home because of unmet needs or because they are feeling isolated and alone. Heres what they might really mean:

Redirecting a Senior with Alzheimers Attention

When a senior with Alzheimers is frustrated and agitated at not being allowed to search for home, redirecting their attention is often the best solution:

Memory Care at Five Star Senior Living

At Five Star Senior Living, we call our memory care program the Bridge to Rediscovery. We use Montessori-Based Dementia Programming to help each resident live their most independent life in an environment designed to support success.

The best way to learn more about MBDP and our award-winning memory care is by scheduling a personal visit. !

Tell Me About Your Home

A home may not mean what you assume it does for your loved one. They might be thinking of a childhood home or another place they lived when they were younger.

Going back to that place in their mind represents an important time, and you can explore it further. By getting to the heart of the matter, you have the opportunity to allow your loved one to express feelings and emotions.

» Get help from GoodTrust:

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Common Changes In Behaviour

In the middle to later stages of most types of dementia, a person may start to behave differently. This can be distressing for both the person with dementia and those who care for them.

Some common changes in behaviour include:

• repeating the same question or activity over and over again
• restlessness, like pacing up and down, wandering and fidgeting
• night-time waking and sleep disturbance
• following a partner or spouse around everywhere
• loss of self-confidence, which may show as apathy or disinterest in their usual activities

If you’re caring for someone who’s showing these behaviours, it’s important to try to understand why they’re behaving like this, which is not always easy.

You may find it reassuring to remember that these behaviours may be how someone is communicating their feelings. It may help to look at different ways of communicating with someone with dementia.

Sometimes these behaviours are not a dementia symptom. They can be a result of frustration with not being understood or with their environment, which they no longer find familiar but confusing.

What Dementia Patients Mean By Saying That They Want To Go Home

When dementia parents say that they want to go home, itcould mean a lot of things. Some of thereasons behind this desire include feelings of anxiety, depression, orhome-sickness.

Based on the fact thatdementia affects short-term memory, the seniors with dementia may be reflectingon long term memories of the places and times that were once calming andsecure. Interestingly, your loved one may still want to go home, even if hesalready in his own home. Its not that he has gone out of mind hes onlythinking of his childhood home that ceased to exist many decades ago.

Its also important toremember that home could be symbolic, representing the longing forsomething familiar to your loved one. For instance, the senior could have beenused to going for walks before he was taken to the hospital or assisted livingfacility. He may, therefore, have that desire to do the same. Its quiteunfortunate that memory loss with dementia patients no longer allows them toperceive familiar things. The person may only subconsciously make theconnection between home with a sense of belonging and familiarity.

Also, your loved one may want to go home, not becauseits his usual residence, but its because thats where his domestic affectionis centered. This is the notion thats mostly expressed by most seniors withdementia. They want to be in a placewhere their comfort is nurtured with the loving and shared intimacy being feltin family life.

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Some Things You Can Try:

• Try to understand and acknowledge the feelings behind the wish to go home.
• Reassure the person that they will be safe. Touching and holding can be reassuring.
• Reminisce by looking at photographs or by talking about childhood and family.
• Try to redirect them with food or other activities, such as a walk.
• Dont disagree with the person or try to reason with them about wanting to go home.

What To Say To A Dementia Patient Who Wants To Go Home

For a loved one who has dementia, the world is turned upside down. We have no way of knowing exactly what happens in the brain and with the emotions of a person with dementia, but we do have evidence of what kind of communication works best.

Each person with dementia will respond and behave in an individual fashion that may have nothing to do with their previous personality.

Read Also: How Much A Dementia Patient Needs To Know

Tips To Help Manage Dementia Sleep Problems

There are ways to help your loved on get a better nights sleep, Hashmi says.

Avoid things that disrupt sleep.

• Limit caffeine, alcohol, and sugar near bedtime.
• Avoid over-the-counter sleep aids. Instead, Hashmi suggests you talk to a doctor about whether melatonin might help your loved one sleep.
• Remove electronics from the bedroom.

Create a routine that supports sleep.

• Make sure your loved one gets enough daytime light to help with circadian rhythms.
• Change into comfortable clothing, signaling nighttime.
• Consider warm milk, a hot shower, relaxing music or reading before bed.
• Pick a bedtime not too late and stick with it every night.

Tips For Managing Dementia Wandering

The No. 1 priority is to keep your loved one safe, Hashmi says. He suggests the following actions:

• Secure all doors. Be especially vigilant about doors that lead outside.
• Use technology. Tracking devices and surveillance systems are widely available and affordable.
• Enlist a team. Neighborhood watch groups and local police are often happy to help keep an eye out for your loved one.

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Reminiscing Can Provide Comfort

The next time your loved one talks about going “home,” remember that it may be a reference to the past. Try to respond with some questions of your own. For example, you can ask about your loved one’s childhood memories, or you can look at old family photographs together. Reminiscing about childhood and the home where the person grew up can be comforting.

You might also try using validation therapy. With this approach, you validate your loved one’s experiences and emotions by asking questions that help them process their feelings. This can help your loved one work through the loss of their sense of comfort. Some questions could include:

• What was your childhood house like?
• Do you miss it?
• What was the best thing about your family?
• What was your favorite home-cooked food?
• How did the kitchen smell?
• Did you share a bedroom with your siblings?

Try echoing your loved one’s feelings. For example, you could say, “You must wish you could be at home right now.” This can help the person feel like you understand what they’re feeling. That can be very comforting.

Tips For Managing Your Loved Ones Confusion

Simplification is key here, Hashmi says. To help minimize confusion, he suggests several ways to simplify both the home environment and your interactions:

Provide structure.

• Keep familiar objects around to help reorient your loved one.
• Label drawers and cabinets. This is especially helpful if confusion about where to find things is a common trigger.
• Use tools such as alarms, calendars, and to-do lists to help them remember tasks.

Deliberately use simple, short sentences and ask yes/no questions.

• Normalize their experience. Say, Youre confused. Its okay. Well figure it out together.
• Lead with what you think might be happening. For example: It seems like youre looking for something.
• Its often much easier for your loved one to answer yes or no questions, instead of coming up with the words themselves. Are you looking for your keys? Are you looking for your glasses?

Lastly, Hashmi says, it helps if you can learn to accept the confusion. In the moment, he says, whatever your loved one thinks is real is in fact their reality. For example, they might think theyre at work when theyre really at home. If that belief isnt hurting them or anyone else, its OK for you to play along a little bit. Confronting or trying to change the belief often leads to agitation and aggression.

For us as caregivers, we have to be OK with that confusion, Hashmi says.

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How To Make It More Home

Here are some tips and ideas for how to make wherever they live more home-y to them!

If having pictures of their family and friends around makes them happy, put up as many as you can. Being surrounded by this kind of support is amazing. That said, if seeing a bunch of strangers staring at them agitates your person with dementia, then remove all the pictures of people.

Pictures of places. My Mother In Law grew up in Minnesota so she loves pictures of snow, lakes and woods. Even though we live in Florida now, we have a much more country vibe in her room to help her feel like she belongs.

Warm blankets. Many Alzheimers and dementia people are cold. Having lots of warm blankets around to snuggle up in is an easy way to make comfort. Bonus, with lots of blankets, if they make a mess you can just swap them out and toss them in the washer for a quick clean.

Soft music. Sometimes it is hard not to have things running through your mind when sitting in complete silence. Playing some soft music in the background could help! Try all different eras, some may want jazz, some 80s rock and some might want to go all the way back to the big bands they listened to as kids.

How To Cope With Common Changes In Behaviour

Although changes in behaviour can be difficult to deal with, it can help to work out if there are any triggers.

For example:

• Do some behaviours happen at a certain time of day?
• Is the person finding the home too noisy or cluttered?
• Do these changes happen when a person is being asked to do something they may not want to do?

Keeping a diary for 1 to 2 weeks can help identify these triggers.

If the change in behaviour comes on suddenly, the cause may be a health problem. The person may be in pain or discomfort from constipation or an infection.

Ask a GP for an assessment to rule out or treat any underlying cause.

Keeping an active social life, regular exercise, and continuing activities the person enjoys, or finding new ones, can help to reduce behaviours that are out of character.

Read more about activities for dementia.

Other things that can help include:

• providing reassurance
• activities that give pleasure and confidence, like listening to music or dancing
• therapies, such as animal-assisted therapy, music therapy, and massage

Remember also that it’s not easy being the person supporting or caring for a person with behaviour changes. If you’re finding things difficult, ask for support from a GP.

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Visiting In The Later Stages

Find an activity that will draw in as many of the senses as possible sight, taste, smell, hearing and touch.

• Touch a gentle kiss or hand holding can be reassuring.
• Sensory massaging legs, hands and feet with scented creams or oils may be enjoyable for some people. The scent of perfumes and flowers can also be enjoyed.
• Facial expressions a smile, a comforting gaze or a look of affection can often provide reassurance to a person with dementia.
• Music for many people, music can provide comfort and familiarity.
• Visitors visits from friends and relatives, even though they may not be recognised or remembered, can provide stimulation and comfort.
• Books being read a favourite book or poetry can provide enjoyment.
• Walking a stroll around the grounds, even if in a wheelchair, may be enjoyable for both the resident and visitor.

There is no correct number of times to visit or amount of time to stay. The important thing is to make each visit as rewarding as possible.

What Should You Keep In Mind While You Respond

Communicating with someone who has dementia is like solving a puzzle. You may have already had experience trying to communicate with your parent with dementia when they refuse help or reminding them gently about other small things.

Couch your communication in certain foundational principles until you know you have hit upon the most effective communication strategies.

As time goes on and your loved one gets worse, you may need to be flexible and try other communication methods. Lets look at some guidelines as you respond to the request to go home.

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You Alone Have To Decide What Level Of Truth You Are Comfortable Telling

Talk with your loved ones doctor about the diseases progression and their recommendation on what to say and how truthful you may want to be.

If you arent comfortable telling an outright lie, that is OK and so is not being entirely honest. Discuss options with the rest of your family, so you all agree on consistent messaging.

Jump Ahead To These Sections:

• What to Say to a Dementia Patient Who Wants to Go Home

We also know this. People with dementia have common symptoms that include problems with memory, difficulty expressing ideas, disorientation to time and place, poor judgment, anxiety, and depression.

It is common for people with advancing dementia to not remember what was said minutes before and to repeatedly ask the same question over and over again.

If your loved one is in memory care, assisted living, or nursing home care, they may ask to go home.

Both of you may have a hard time dealing with the anguish caused by this request. There may be no simple solution, but we have some tips to keep you both calm and centered.

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