Mum keeps asking to go home

[Amorylis]

Hi, I am new to the forum and new to vascular dementia. My Mum had a cerebral bleed six months ago which has caused vascular dementia of the severe type. She lives in a nursing home and seems to have settled well into the routine there. I am happy that she is being well cared for. However, although she is much better than on discharge from hospital four months ago she is asking to go home. She doesn't seem to know where home is but she says she is unhappy and if she can't go home she wants to die. I am finding this very hard. She has been so well and independent until she had the bleed at the end of last August. She doesn't seem to have any insight into her dementia and is quite certain that she works at the nursing home and is being kept prisoner. We are in the process of emptying her flat and disposing of her furniture etc. It feels so awful especially when she talks about going home. I feel as though it is a kind of bereavement except not as Mum is alive and looks quite well. I wonder if this is normal or at least common in this type of dementia? It would be very helpful to get other people's experiences and methods of coping with the constant requests to go home. Thanks. Amarylis

 

[Cat27]

Welcome to TP

Unfortunately wanting to go home is very common with dementia. Try things like the GP says you have to stay until you're stronger.

 

[Nut]

Hi Amorylis, yes sadly this is very common. My Mum moved to a residential home 6 months ago and the first three to four months were hard going with Mum telling me she wanted to go home every day. People on TP were helpful and kind. One helpful thing was to talk it over with the manager of the care home. I did, and he was super supportive. I also chat to staff and ask how Mum has been and most of the time she was (and is) fine, chats with others and staff and potters about. It does pass, it does get better. One of the most helpful things of all is the explanation that behind the wish to go home is an expression of fear - feeling scared because this is a new place, new faces, feeling scared that the memory of home has disappeared, scared about the future and more loss. I try always to be reassuring and ended up deciding to be kind rather than honest. When she asked to go,home I just said "yes ok, we'll go at the weekend" and that was that, no more asking, never remembering my false promise. I do try and get her out for a walk to a coffee shop now and again, but it is getting harder as she gets older. Well done for dealing with her flat by the way!


Sent from my iPad using Talking Point

 

[Amorylis]

Hi Nut, thanks for your reply. I will ring the manager as you suggest and have a talk to her she is very approachable. I have started to respond to her requests to go home by agreeing but I think your approach is a good one. The staff say she is quite ok and settled and I do wonder if seeing me makes her think of home and maybe she is feeling afraid as she doesn't quite understand why she is being cared for. That is upsetting really isn't it? I am going to start taking her out when the weather gets warmer. Thanks again.

 

[Merrymaid]

Hi Amorylis before Mum went into the CH and was living with me, where she had been for 30 years or so, she started asking to go home. I asked her where this was and why. She meant my childhood home and wanted to get there as 'my Dad was waiting', or 'the dog had to be fed', or 'Jen (my daughter now 33) was on her own'. Bless her she still felt tied to her past roles. When she went into care she asked to go 'home' for some time. Again I asked where this was, for the briefest of times it was the house we last shared, but swiftly it returned to being the home of my childhood.

The CH has pasted full length posters on all the doors of the residents in the EMI unit which make each look like a front door to their own little flat. This helped her settle I think, & at each visit I would compliment her on her lovely flat and how she had got it looking good.

Mum did settle and stopped asking to come home. However I see the new residents all going through this phase when they first move in. So as others have suggested it may be triggered by the new environment they find themselves in.

 

[Amorylis]

Hi Merrymaid, thanks for your reply. I am getting the feeling that asking to go home is quite common and maybe I am worrying too much. Mum doesn't actually seem to know where her home is. I have asked her and she can't say. I have stopped asking her now as it feels rather unkind. I have also noticed that she is quite unaware of her age and stage in life. So, for example on Monday she kept saying the family needed her. I think she was talking about when she was much younger and had a family, a big family actually, at home. Mum looks quite well now so it somehow gives me a shock every time I see her to realise that Mum, essentially is not there any longer. Thanks again for your support.

 

[velocity]

My Mum keeps asking to go home, she wants to go back to the town she has spent most of her life. Sometimes its her previous home, sometimes where she lived with her parents. She will often comment that she hasn't seen her Mother or Father for ages and could we go to see them. she also worries about money. Mum has hallucinations and delusions, she sees and hears people animals and children. Will say she has seen her Sister but she didn't speak to her, so when I ring my Aunt who is 93yrs I ask beforehand would she like to speak to her Sister 'no fear I saw her the other day and she didn't speak to me' so I try to explain its one of those times that she has seen something/body that I cannot and it probably wasn't her anyway! She says hello cannot speak for long as busy! My Mum can be very anxious, she doesn't seem to relax. I try to re-assure but it doesn't help her.
I feel for her. xx

 

[Witzend]

My mother went through quite a long stage of wanting to go and see her long-dead parents, in a house that didn't even exist any more. 'They must be getting old and could do with some help.' (My mother was over 90).

I just used to say I couldn't take her today because my car was being serviced/the roads were very busy/icy/closed because of a bad accident/anything else that sounded good. 'But maybe we could go tomorrow?'
That always kept her happy enough, thank goodness.
I had become so proficient at 'love lies' by then that I'd sometimes add e.g. 'I'll give them a ring first - we wouldn't want to go all that way and find them out, would we?'

 

[stanleypj]

I feel as though it is a kind of bereavement except not as Mum is alive and looks quite well.. Amarylis

I know what you mean. In a way, the whole dementia progression can be viewed as a long series of bereavements. Each time you realise that some skill has disappeared, reading e.g, The PWD may or may not feel they are bereaved, depending on the stage they've reached but those who love them almost certainly will. I think you have to try and concentrate on the positives, and make the most of them. It's not easy but it's good that your mum still looks quite well, isn't it? I expect there are other things about her life that could be a lot worse.

 

[Rageddy Anne]

It's distressing to see someone you love thinking they can " go home" but that seems to be the way so many people with Dementia express their longing to be somewhere familiar where, in their past, they were comfortable in their minds.

My husband was at home when he started asking the question, and sometimes it was so urgent that I'd get the car out and we would go for a drive...once in the car, he would relax, and the actual coming home went unremarked.

His brother actually took him back to the house where they'd grown up; the resident kindly let them go into the back garden that had been so familiar. My husband didn't know where he was.

Then he went to live in a Care Home, and the same question was asked many times. I always said the painters were there so we couldn't go home just yet, until they'd finished. He seemed OK with that, and it lasted for months, and he never remembered that I'd said it before.

Now he has moved to a different Care home, and still asks the same question. The "painters" story still works. Sometimes I try to give the impression I live there too, so when he can't see me,he can be calmed by someone saying I'll be back when I've finished some little job. Sometimes he thinks I've just nipped to post a letter. Mostly he thinks I live there too.

I think h's actually forgotten our home altogether.Tomorrow, two good friends are bringing him to the house, for tea. It will be interesting to see if he knows where he is. I'm pretty sure he won't. Will post on here to tell you...

 

[Hill Man]

I had an elderly aunt who whilst she did not have dementia had suffered a serious physical disability and had a prolonged hospital stay. She was insistent she went home and after alterations to her house and provision of multiple daily care visits she was able to go home. After two months she announced that she hated it. It wasn't the physical home that she craved but a return to her old way of life and independence. Once she accepted that those things had gone she started to look for residential home places and greatly enjoyed spending her final year were there were people on hand, meals when she wanted and people to speak to.

I think PWD who ask to go home are the same, yearning for a past life, but sadly one that cannot exist.